Memories Fade. Sacrifices are forgotten. And it's endearing how we pretend they don't to reassure. Not to reassure those we remember (if they need to be remembered, whether they are or not is little solace), but those whose pity pushes us to make promises. Even if it soothes momentary tears, it's better to not make promises in the first place than to inevitably break them, even if the pledge could be maintained for 100 years.

And so, let's accept this. Let's accept that there's only so much any one person can know. There are limits. Remember the Alamo! Until you have to Remember the Maine! And even then, it will soon be placed by Remembering Pearl Harbor! And now we have September Eleventh. A day that will never be forgotten. Even though the genocides in Rwanda seem conveniently to never have been remembered to begin with. And how do you explain to a child in the 21st Century that she should hold in her heart a place for the victims in New York, but the Rape of Nanking is worth only historical study and not the overwhelming sense of personal indignation politicians continue to tell us 9/11 should inspire? Let us stop deceiving widows and orphans: your loss will be remembered for as long as it can be, as long as it is still useful to remember, as long as it doesn't cause more loss as baggage than it reminds of joy. We are sorry if this compounds your loss, but it has only been by telling this to the generations before you that you even now can walk through streets without weeping at the undiminished loss of those who came before.

Of course, it's nice to save space in the brain, but it's awfully hard to sleep there. Which brings us to the real estate of loss: memorials. Chipped away from marble or cast in bronze, the monuments of today are meant to last. And last. Until they start to show their age, not gracefully but by dilapidation. Hinges break, windows warp. Fewer visitors run eagerly through the turnstiles, until the ones who might come are put off by the overly insistent and too damn helpful gaze of the curator whose day consists mainly of rereading scraps of 18th Century parchment. And soon enough, we are not remembering the memory but the monument. Our efforts turn selfish but with a pretense of philanthropy, the most vile of motives. Some superintendent's wife takes up the cause of preserving the local treasure, without realizing the irony of watching the watcher. I can only thank the stars I live in a country too young to have preservation societies fragile enough to need protection themselves.

And if you might doubt that the attention of the public is so easily turned from signified to signifier, I ask you this: Who was Cheops and what did he do? I don't know, to be honest, and neither do you. But you still hope one day to travel to Giza to see his Pyramid. Gettysburg and Antietam would never have been safe if they had happened in the streets of Manhattan or any other Metropolis, which would have built around their fallen bodies during the fight. And now they're permanently safe only because tourists love the ability to feel the collective hush of hallowed ground, even if they aren't quite sure what kicked off the tradition.

Instead, let us build proportional memorials. The greater the loss, the greater the structure. For that wonderful loaf of bread you forgot to eat in a timely manner, leave a pile of dust on your way to the car, to be washed away by the next rain. Keep the last small present your ex-lover gave your prominently on your desk, to warm you with its fond inner light until a house pet or co-worker absent-mindedly confiscates it. Fill the Lincoln Monument with plastic balls and swing sets. Turn it into a playground, so that all the children of D.C. would prefer nothing more than to visit this fine specimen of a man, time and time again, until they know the contours of his face from climbing over it. What better motivation could there be to an eleventh grade student to study his history than a subconscious attraction to this man's visage, and a subdued memory that his left ear was a particularly effective handhold?

Even better than reminding other people or yourself of a loved one departed, in one circumstance or another, is making something of that. Be better because of their memory. Drive safer, in remembrance of Cindy. Build a better mousetrap as a tribute to Fluffy, God Rest His Soul. Eat healthier, and let your toned abs be dedicated to your fourth grade teacher's infinite patience and compassion. For extra credit, combine creation and retelling. They Might Be Giants immortalized our 11th President in a song with a silly melody. Shakespare's 18th sonnet is an admirable attempt ("So long as ... eyes can see,/ so long lives this, and this gives life to thee").

But English will sooner or later go out of style, and TMBG's alternative-nerdy-indie-pop-rock style still hasn't quite made it. So what was the last time that remembrance gave us something permanent? Some people say ideas stopped happening in the Renaissance, some in Ancient Greece, but I say that even ideas can fade. So look further back, from thoughts to emotions. At some point there was a first human. And a few years later there were other humans, and then loss started. And there was one instant, when a Homo Erectus walked away from her mate. If you had been there, you could have looked into his Australopithecine eyes and seen the first hurt, the first numb acceptance that you'll still notice if you look closely at anybody recently without their companion.

And a few years after that, some hunter dragged home a Mastodon carcass to find his proto-spouse shtupping a gatherer, and he invented betrayal, forever to be invoked with a debt of invention owed to him, and by him to her. In due time came jealousy and loneliness. But it was only with the addition of these pangs that allowed someone to create an emotion not after the loss but instead of it. And he knew of how awful things could be, and that convinced him that what he had truly was as great as his heart told him. And he left to the world not bitterness, but the first true love.

Biologists may disagree with my phylogeny, but in my eyes, he was the first true Human.

Here's a little ditty for the philosophy majors out there:

In conversation with yours truly,

Ethics Tutor: "Your paper [on moral subjectivism] is lucid, thorough and quite good. There are, however, some elements of unargued dogmatism. Its very...Continental."

Worst...........Insult.................Ever

In response to my associate's previous post, I quote the following from the archives (check them out, there's good shit in there).

"Bentley, I offer this in friendship:

Cry on the outside and laugh on the inside.
Cut a stitch in time, pick up a penny on tails.
Procrastinate.
Masturbate.
Imitate.
Grab the bull by his balls and then run away.
Examine a gift horse's molars.
Wear white after labor day.
Ignore every bit of practical advice ever given to you by Benjamin Franklin.
Don't allow yourself the luxury of pondering all of Oscar Wilde's bittersweet musings.
Recognize altruisms as all-falsisms.
Disregard any list compiled by an ametaur that attempts to undo 5000 years of common sense.
Find your own fucking ethos.
Piss into the wind.
Eat with the wrong fork.
Eat with your hands.
Eat your hand.
Shoot your Ch'I all over her tits.
Publish a manifesto.
Don't listen to Emo.
Kiss the bad guy, save the night and kill the girl.
Ride on in from the sunrise.

The only way to become more interesting is to become more interest-ED.

--Fosteyricon."

Can you count how many rules he broke, kids? If you get it right, you win a shiny new New Jersey Turnpike token.

"Has anyone at Oxford seen God?"
was I asked, and replied with a nod:
"I was told to expect Her
at a philosophy lecture,
But She's lost down in Christ Church's quad."

Today's Limerick by Fosterius.

Dollars prevent remorse. That may not have been their original intention, but they do.

Why? Because dollars accumulate. They pile up, and all you have to do is wait. Who wouldn't want all of life to be like this? Right now, only age seems to increase itself; even in spite of the holder's wished. But follow me down what if lane...

What if earned laughter could be banked at a market rate. You spend three months, inciting polite chuckles in women with great personalities, and by deferring the ego boost until the next quarter, you could end up with a gaggle of pretty girls all finding you hilarious.

Or inspiration, that fickle rain that switches from drought to flood and back again before you can reach for your pencil. What author wouldn't want his ideas for the year deposited in a low-risk mutual fund, to be parceled out through the seasons in easily manageable chunks of genius?

Many a times, I've been walking down the street with, on my arm, the ephemeral girlfriend. I know she'll be gone in weeks, but as long as she's there, I get an extra glance, up and down, from other females on the prowl. Though the memory of them alone has been enough to get me through cold winter (and even warm summer) nights, what if I could hold on to that sliver of opportunity until I knew it would be most properly taken advantage of?

And this is what dollars prevent. That remorse. Because sure, you could have used that extra dog-in-a-wetsuit line at the Halloween party and then, yeah, you could have ended up on a couch with Christina Kretschen. But if you could just find a way to turn your charm, your humor, your attraction into money (difficult, but this is what we keep SoCal around for) and back again (easy, so long as you know what euphemisms to begin your journey in the yellow pages at), what appreciation there could be! That clothed groping in 8th grade, at a measly interest rate of 4% ends up as a full blown mistress, just by age 55! And who wouldn't want that?

Me. I wouldn't want that. I want my mistresses now. I believe it was Benjamin Franklin, and I'm paraphrasing here, who first said that any man who would give up a porsche to have a 401k ain't getting neither. And if he thinks the pearly gates will reward his forethought, well, just wait till he gets there and St. Peter's at the Tribal Casino, feeding a slot machine with the last few quarters from the pawn shop where he left angelic architecture in capable if dingy hands.

But squandering can happen in either direction. Exhausting resources is no more shameful than leaving them untapped. Even children can only be distracted for so long by the answer of "maybe later", rolling it over their tongue to determine its vintage, its year, and where that slight earthy flavor comes from (before realizing it's from the dirt they've been all the while shoveling into their mouths), and they're Children, for Chrissakes!

No doubt there are many who would rather forget all but the first few of these paragraphs. Wishing to put the red shirt in with the whites, and live their life in dull pink. I say, give me my fleeces, red with enemies' blood, and my oxford shirts, collars starched, as they come. Cause who knows what the bank of fortune has to offer me, and mortgaging it now, while possible locking me in to low interest rates, dooms me to spending the rest of my life tryign to catch up to where I should have been able to be being already by then.

Yes, dollars prevent remorse. But so does carpe'ing one's diems.

Daniel R. Foster

TOMBE’S PROOF

A Play in One Act


CHARACTERS

Dr. Adam Tombe: Stuart Professor of Philosophy; in his early to mid-thirties.

Dr. Saul Kripke: Professor Emeritus of Logic; a friend and mentor of Tombe’s; in his early sixties.

David: A doctoral candidate; a friend and pupil of Tombe’s; in his early twenties.

Eva Rippen: A beautiful fourth-year undergrad; twenty-one years old.

Eva’s female friend.

Mrs. Swanson: A prominent university Trustee.

Martin: An eccentric local and friend of Tombe’s.


SETTING

Princeton University, New Jersey. Fall.




SCENE I

Early morning—Tombe’s office. Stage lights slightly, to reveal a small, cluttered room. Bookshelves line the walls and are filled with crudely organized volumes. Tombe is seated behind a desk, which is strewn with papers and opened books. He is wearing an old corduroy blazer and an unbuttoned white dress shirt over a white t-shirt. He has a sad, confused look on his face. Opposite him, acting as a bookend on one of the shelves, is a small granite bust of Socrates.


Tombe: I know in my heart that I’m not the first man to reach the conclusions I’ve reached.

(There is a long pause)

I know there must have been others—a brilliant, miserable line of bearded bastards descending from Descartes—fumbling one step closer to the end, one after another. And Nietzsche, on his perpetual death bed, arrogantly scratching away the artifice of 5,000 years of Western civilization…he must have just glimpsed the cataclysm as the weak body took its last weak breath.

(He looks at the statue of Socrates)

How about you, old man? Did you see it in your hemlock just before you took a drink? No, you didn’t. Not you. You lived in blissful fucking ignorance. You had the luxury of talking about VIRTUE and TRUTH, as if—as if they were REAL. As if they were as real as THIS.

(He stands and tears a sheet of paper from a notebook on the desk, holding it half crumpled, his balled fist between his face and Socrates’, as if to show him.)

(Several moments pass as he calms himself and lowers the paper).

No…It can’t be right. It can’t…My God, seven steps…seven simple propositions from here to oblivion…It’s…It’s just too damned simple. It’s wrong. It’s flawed. That’s the only reasonable explanation. I had a little too much bourbon after dinner, stared at the Dali paintings in the gallery for a little too long, and came back to the office and wrote a hell of a brain-tease. That’s all it is. A fucking brain tease.

(He finishes crumpling the paper and lets it fall to the ground. He looks at his pocket watch)

Chrissakes…sixteen hours. Pull it together, Tombe. You’re talking to yourself.

(He starts to button his shirt and tuck it into his khaki pants)

You’ll go to Corwin Hall and you’ll give your lecture and you’ll forget about this proof.

(Finished with his shirt, he smoothes his hair, picks up a worn briefcase, and heads toward the door. Halfway there, he turns around, picks up the crumpled paper and puts it in his jacket pocket.)

Lights Fade.


SCENE II

Later that morning—lecture hall. Stage lights to reveal a raised lectern upstage and a chalk board behind it, covered with odd symbols. Downstage are the first few rows of what is presumably a much larger hall. About half the seats are filled. Tombe stands at the lectern, half-turned toward the board and gesturing with a piece of chalk. His voice and demeanor are clearly preoccupied.

Tombe: …So, essentially, everything we do in Propositional calculus—conjunction, disjunction, negation, implication and equivalence—it can all be done with this one operation: the Sheffer Stroke…Everything, an entire universe of reason in the flick of your wrist. Seems too easy, doesn’t it?.........Uh, anyway, for next time, finish Russell. That is all.
(As the class gets up to leave, Tombe begins to gather papers from the lectern and places them in his briefcase. Lights dim slightly upstage; lights brighten downstage, where Eva and her friend talk quietly)
Friend: Isn’t it customary to fuck a professor while you’re actually taking his class?
Eva: That’s too obvious. If you do it in the fall and then take his course in the spring, it’s more subtle. And it isn’t about getting an A anyway. I can get an A on my own.
(Upstage, Tombe is taking the crumpled up paper out of his pocket and slowly unfolding and smoothing it.)
Friend: So what is it about? The sex? I mean, he’s sort of good looking for an older guy, but…
Eva: I guess it’s about the sex. But it’s also about getting inside his head. You know, exploring his genius.
Friend: Eva, just because the guy has ‘doctor’ in front of his name doesn’t mean he’s a genius. Remember Dr. Stadler from English last semester? Guy was an idiot.
Eva: Tombe has two Ph.D.s actually—one in Philosophy from Oxford, and one in Set Theoretic Mathematics from MIT. He also has masters in Political Theory, Particle Physics and Cognitive Psychology.
Friend: Fine. He gets around. Listen, just be careful, ok? These intellectual types can be weird.
(Upstage Tombe folds the paper and puts it back in his jacket pocket. Eva notices that he is about to leave)
Eva: I will, don’t worry. I have to go catch him. See you later.
(Eva hurries toward Tombe, friend exits stage right, shaking her head)
Eva: Um, excuse me, Dr. Tombe?
Tombe: (Turning to look) Uh, yes, Miss…Miss…I’m sorry…I seem to have forgotten your name.
Eva: Oh, it’s Eva. Eva Rippen.
Tombe: Eva? I don’t think I remember an Eva on the class list—
Eva: Oh, I’m not in this course, I just came to see you lecture. I’m actually trying to get into your seminar in the spring. I’m just such a huge fan of your work.
Tombe: Thank you, I didn’t realize philosophers had ‘fans’.

(She blushes coyly)

Eva: Do you mind if I ask why you’re teaching freshman logic?

Tombe: Uh, I don’t know, really. I guess there’s something about uncorrupted minds.

Eva: (With some very flirtatious body language) Well, your students must love working with you.

Tombe: (Noticing Eva’s apparent attraction) I hope so. Listen, Eva. I have go…I have to talk to an old friend in the department. But if you like, stop by my office and we’ll see about the senior seminar.

Eva: Thank you, Dr…I, I wondered actually…if you might be able to meet me later tonight? For dinner or something… I just have so many questions I’d like to ask you about your last book. I just loved your treatise on the mind-body problem.

Tombe: (Smiling) Eva, dead men write treatises. Living ones write papers.

(She smiles, he hesitates, both intrigued and uncomfortable)

I have a function to go to tonight at the alumni club, but after that…I suppose I can meet you at that coffee shop across from the library. Say, nine o’clock?

Eva: That sounds fantastic! I’ll see you then Dr. Tombe.

(She exits stage left. He exits stage right. Lights fade)




SCENE III

Later that day—Another office. Stage lights to reveal an office similar to Tombe’s. However, the bookshelves are more neatly organized, the desk is clear except for a pen and legal pad, and in place of the bust of Socrates etc. are other bits of decoration. Seated at the desk is Saul Kripke, a small, solid man with balding gray hair and beard.

(There is a knock)

Kripke: Yes?

(Tombe enters)

Kripke: Adam! Come in, come in. I wondered how long I’d have to stay in town and wait for you to drop in on me.

(Kripke turns and reclines in his chair. Tombe takes a seat in front of the desk and to one side, so that the two are basically in profile to the audience).

Tombe: Yeah, I’m sorry, Saul. It’s been kind of a rough week.

Kripke: (Lightly) Rough how, Adam? Are your awards cluttering up your mantle? Are you having trouble keeping your grant money straight?

Tombe manages a polite smile, but it quickly fades.

Kripke: But seriously, what is it? It’s that doctoral candidate you’ve taken on isn’t it? The new boy wonder, what’s his name?

Tombe: David

Kripke: Yes, David. It’s him, isn’t it? You’ve realized he exceeds you in intelligence and it’s sent you into a deep depression.

Tombe: No, I’ve never thought David was lacking in genius. But he could use more focus. He’s more concerned with what’s socially remedial or psychological healthy than what is consistent, what is true, what is valid.

Kripke: Yes. While you want to be God, David’s perfectly content with being Christ.

(Both men laugh briefly. Tombe’s smile again fades and he sighs)

Tombe: (after a pause) Saul…logic is sound, isn’t it?

Kripke: Whose logic, Adam? Mine? I’m an old man; my logic gets less sound with each passing day.

Tombe: (Another polite smile) No, I mean…are the Frenchmen right? Are we just sitting in our ivory towers playing truth games?

Kripke: Adam, if it’s reassurance you want, I’m afraid you’re in the wrong decade. You know as well as I do that there is a new assault on human reason every day of the week—its limits, its mistakes, its delusions and deceptions, on and on. Heck, if you want to read about the trouble with axiomatic systems, I suggest you dust off your own dissertation. But the basics—if p then q, causality, proof—I’d like to think we have a pretty good handle on them.

Tombe: Yeah…yeah, I suppose you’re right.

Kripke: I’ll tell you what, Adam. We’ll round up a young postmodernist from the department, go get a cup of coffee, and have a nice dialectic on the whole thing. How’s that sound?

Tombe: (Rubbing eyes) Coffee sounds good, but what I’d really like is a cigarette.

Kripke: Shameful. You haven’t smoked in years, why start again now?

Tombe: Oh, something I’m working on. I’m testing a proof, and I know there’s a formal flaw, but I just can’t spot it. Cigarettes used to help me think.

Kripke: Well, by some trick of the cosmos, you are in luck. I happen to have a pack.
(Produces pack of cigarettes from desk drawer)

Tombe: (Surprised) What are you doing with a pack of cigarettes, Saul? You’ve never smoked…

Kripke: (Suddenly bewildered). I…I don’t really know actually. I was filling the car up this morning and…it just…occurred to me that I should buy it…strange now that I think about it...

(Tombe stands, accepts the pack, and starts for the door)

Tombe: Thanks for the cigarettes, but I’ll have to take a rain check on the coffee. I’m going to try and have another look at this proof before the banquet tonight.

Kripke. Well, you’ve aroused my curiosity. Care to tell me what it is you’re working on?

Tombe: …Not yet. If I’m wrong it would be embarrassing, and if I’m right well…well, I’m not sure I want to be right.

Kripke: (Jokingly) What have you done, Adam? Disproved the existence of God?

Tombe: Oh, no. No…this is much bigger than God…I’ll see you at the banquet, Saul.

(Tombe exits, lights fade)


SCENE IV

Later that day—a park. At stage center there is a small tree. Beneath it there is a chess table with two chairs. Martin is sitting in one of the chairs, arranging pieces on the board. He wears a mix of tattered garb from various eras, including but not limited to: a black bowler cap and black cut-off gloves, a white cravat, a silver waistcoat, knickerbockers and black buckled shoes etc. In the background we hear birds chirping and the occasional sound of children at play. Tombe enters stage right, studying a wrinkled piece of paper intently.

Tombe: (to himself). It’s right…Damn it all, it’s right and there’s not a thing I can do about it.

Martin: (Noticing Tombe) Perfect timing, my good doctor. I’ve just set up the board.

(Tombe sits opposite Martin and immediately moves a piece on the board)

Tombe: How are things, Martin?

Martin: Oh, fine, fine. That new flight of sparrows had a mighty hunger this morn. But fear not, I had bread and seed for one and all.

(After a brief examination of the board, Martin moves one of his pieces. The game continues at a quick but casual pace throughout the conversation)

Martin: And how about you, good doctor? What works of unmitigated brilliance are hatching in your laboratories of late?

Tombe: Does it matter, really? They’re all just ideas, right? —Abstracts on ink and paper. You do more for the world by feeding those birds every day than I’ve ever done.

Martin: A heresy, my good doctor! A heresy! We both would do well not to forget the awesome power of ideas, lest we fall prey to their baser desires.

Tombe: I don’t know…Sometimes I think that the history of the world is just the history of men with pointy things, and that the ideas come after the fact.

Martin: Then perhaps you aren’t as wise as I once suspected. For surely a learned individual would know it is the man who exerts his will on the ‘pointy thing’ and not vice versa. And what a curious being, man, in that his will must be fed by ideas as surely as his belly is fed by bread and wine.

Tombe: So you hold that ideas are devices of the will?

Martin: A Fortiori, my good doctor. Idea is the will. And will is the idea.

Tombe: (Wryly) you’re sounding more and more like a philosopher every day.

Martin: Ah, yes, the philosopher! The thought peddler! The idea tycoon! The willer of the starving masses! For if the wills are to have their bread, there must be a baker! And if the wills are to drink their wine, there must be an orchard!

Tombe: Now you speak in metaphors?

Martin: It takes no metaphor to say of history that people would sooner let their bellies starve than their wills!
Tombe: Maybe once I would have agreed with you without question, Martin. But now I’m not so sure. A lot of people in my profession would say that the will is of the mind, and that the mind is just one small contingency of the physical brain, the organic matter, the ten-to-the-eleventh neurons. And if that’s the case—if the body is prior to the mind—then all of our pretty ideas, all of our theoretical pretensions about the world, will always be accidents of our instincts, of evolution.

Martin: Evolution! What a delectable idea it was that Mr. Darwin had. And how very palatable to so many wills, natural and social, sweet and savory! Yes, he was quite the intellectual entrepreneur. Rivaled only by Herr Marx and Herr Hitler as an arbiter of conceptual consumption!

Tombe: Martin, I admit that it has been years since science and philosophy have purported to deal in irrefutable, absolute, objective facts. But certainly you have to grant that evolution is more than just a convenient ideological tool of the will.

Martin: I’ll grant you more than that, my good doctor. For surely I wouldn’t deign question the wisdom of the right, honorable Mr. Darwin! No, by all accounts, the Descent of Man stands as an unassailable, incontrovertible and supreme Truth! But I ask you this, my friend and pedagogue: does the scrumptiousness of evolution—as you say, its ‘ideological convenience’—suffer from its own veracity? I submit to you that it does not. Nor more than Nazism’s patent falsity stole from its bittersweet pungency to so many German wills. No, good doctor, an idea’s truthfulness and its tastiness are incidental at best, and mutually exclusive at worst.

Tombe: If you’re right…is there any way to avoid those false but appealing ideas?

Martin: Unwholesome ideas? Fattening ideas? Poisonous ideas?

Tombe: Yes.

Martin: Once the will has tasted something it likes, regardless of its dietary value, it rarely ceases consuming until it has had its fill. Thus it is up to men such as yourself, the bakers as it were, to hold your recipes secret should you find them malnourishing.

(With this, Martin makes a forceful move on the chessboard, which he seems proud of)

Tombe: Don’t get your hopes up, Martin. You can stick with your Sicilian Defense, but I won’t fall for your Poison Pawn…. You’ve left too many gaps to cover and soon I’ll make a gambit you won’t counter. Checkmate is sixteen moves away. I can see it as clearly as if I were playing both sides of the board.

Martin: (Tipping his King over on the board) Well, my good doctor. It seems the day is yours.

(Lights fade).




SCENE V

Early Evening—Tombe’s Office. Tombe is standing in front of his desk, wearing black suit pants, shined black shoes, and a white tuxedo shirt. As the scene progresses, he tucks in his shirt, fastens his cuff links, and ties his bowtie.

Tombe: I’ll just sit it out a while, that’s all. I’ll study it, pick it apart, and subject it to every test of consistency I can think of. Then I’ll tweak it, reformulate it, polish it…Maybe I’ll send an abstract to a few folks in the department, and a few at NYU or Rutgers…Ned maybe, and Jerry…good people, smart people. If I’ve missed something, they’ll spot it. Then…when it’s ready, if its ready, I’ll publish it. It’s an idea, that’s all. And maybe it’s a powerful idea. Maybe it’s revolutionary. Maybe it will change the world, the universe. But right now it’s still my idea. And I can decide whether the universe is ready for it.

(There is a knock)

Tombe: Come in.

(David enters through the door stage left. He is wearing a collared t-shirt and khakis.)

Tombe: David. Where’s your tux? The banquet’s in less than an hour.

David: I’m not going to the banquet.

Tombe: David. I don’t want to go either. These things are utterly pointless, I know. But there are going to be trustees there. It could mean grant money for you.

David: No, you don’t understand—

Tombe: It’s work, isn’t it? The Kant lectures. 18th Century German is a little dense. Just put that part of your dissertation off, I’ll see if I can arrange a refresher course with someone here in the German department, then—

David: I’m withdrawing from the program, doctor.

Tombe: What??

David: I’m leaving the university.

Tombe: Why??? Where—when did this happen?

David: It’s been building up for a long time now.

Tombe: David…you’re one of the brightest pre-doc philosopher in the country, and besides that, you’re a friend and a colleague. Think about what you’re saying. What about all your talk of bringing ethics beyond postmodernism, redrawing the boundaries of reason? What about all of that?

David: If there’s one thing that seven years of philosophy has taught me, it’s that the boundaries of reason are immutable and unforgiving. Reason doesn’t work, doctor. It was arrogance to ever think that it did. Mankind can do better than reason, move past it…But I don’t think that philosophy can. You know that I think you do remarkable work, honorable work. But it’s so far removed from the real…I started out interested in politics, doctor. And when I got curious about the forces at work within politics, I read history and political science. And when I wanted still more fundamental principles, I read sociology and psychology. And then I turned to philosophy, and I thought it would finally deliver the tools of a perfected knowledge, all the promises of the Enlightenment. It took me seven years to realize that it can’t possibly do that. Philosophy is too bound by its own narrow commitments. There is nothing Meta about metaphysics… I know now that the answer to the problems of the world isn’t to climb farther up the ladder of abstraction…It’s to climb down and get your hands dirty.

Tombe: David…for God’s sake, doubting, questioning, searching, these are what make philosophy what it is. My freshman logic students could tell you that. All of these objections to reason, these post-whatever discourses, they’re in vogue now, it’s true. And I know that at some levels, they are valid and they make sense. But that can’t be the end, David. It’s a dialectic, it’s a pendulum.

David: Maybe, doctor. I hope you’re right. But my time is too short and my resources are too finite to wait around for one intellectual fad to replace another. I’m going to go somewhere, do something meaningful. The UN, the Peace Corps. I don’t know. Something. Anyway, I just came to thank you, and to say goodbye.

(He turns to leave. Tombe takes some pieces of paper from his desk.)

Tombe: Wait, David. Just do me one favor…(uncertainly) These are, these are some working notes for a theorem I’ve been toying with. Take them back to your apartment, read them over. Check them for flaws. If you still think reason is finite once you’ve read that…then I wish you Godspeed with whatever you decide to do.

(David reluctantly takes the papers and leaves. Lights fade.)




SCENE VI

Later that evening—a dimly lit banquet hall. Classical music is playing softly and there is the low murmur of background conversation. Kripke and Rebecca Swanson stand together at stage center, both dressed formally, holding champagne glasses and exchanging pleasantries. Tombe enters stage right and approaches.

Kripke: Ah, wonderful. This is the gentlemen I mentioned to you—Dr. Adam Tombe, soon to be chair of the philosophy department, meet Mrs. Rebecca Swanson, soon to be chair of the Board of Trustees.

Tombe: It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.

Swanson: And you, doctor. Saul has talked about you endlessly.

Kripke: I was just telling Mrs. Swanson that you were the youngest person to win the Schock Prize in Philosophy and Logic. (To Swanson) His extensions of Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem and the Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle have created quite a buzz in the field.

Swanson: You don’t have to convince me of the man’s qualifications, Saul. We hired him, didn’t we? Besides, I do know a thing or two about the subject. (To Tombe) I’ve read that your theories have been used to formally show that God’s existence can’t be determined one way or another.

Tombe: That is one of the more interesting applications I have seen, yes.

Swanson: I’ve also read that they’ve been rejected by Theists and Atheists alike.

Tombe: Sort of proves the point, doesn’t it?

Swanson: (laughs haughtily)…Tombe, that’s an interesting name. French, isn’t it?

Tombe: The name is. But through the vagaries of conquest, emigration, and marriage, I am not.

Swanson: If I remember my French from finishing school, tombé means ‘fallen’.

Kripke: That’s right.

Swanson: So that would make your Adam Fallen. How…fateful.

Tombe: I suppose so.

(Awkward silence. Sensing this, Kripke chimes in)

Kripke: Could I get either of you a drink?

Swanson: I’m fine thank you.

Tombe: I’ll have Bourbon with a twist of lemon, if you don’t mind.

(The very moment Kripke leaves, a waiter appears with a drink and an envelope)

Waiter: Here you are, sir: Bourbon with lemon. And this is also for you.

(Tombe accepts both, looking perplexed. Just then there is the sound of a phone ringing)

Swanson: Pardon me gentlemen, technology calls.

(Swanson produces a cell phone and begins a muted conversation. Slowly, a look of shock comes to her face. Meanwhile, Tombe opens the letter and reads the contents aloud to himself.)

Tombe: “Doctor—I can find no fault in your proof. Goodbye.”

(Putting away her phone, Swanson turns to Tombe with a look of shock and concern.)

Swanson: If you’ll excuse me, Dr. Tombe…it seems that someone has jumped from the chapel tower.

(Lights fade)



SCENE VI

Early next morning—Tombe’s office. Tombe sits at his desk, still wearing his tuxedo, though the bowtie is undone, the shirt only half tucked, and the cufflinks unfastened. He has a dazed, sad look on his face.

Tombe: I was disappointed in David for not having enough faith in reason…but he had enough faith to see what the Proof really meant, to see what it might…would lead to. And seeing that, knowing that…he took his own life…his own life which was worth mine a dozen times over… poor, poor wise old David…Last night I wanted nothing more than to do the absolute irrational act of curling into a ball and weeping like a baby. When I remembered the girl…Eva…I found myself wishing for an instant that she’d drop off the face of the earth so I wouldn’t have to deal with another human being… I went to the Registrar’s office this morning and ask for the contact information of an senior named Eva Rippen. I wanted to call and apologize for missing our meeting. The young man at the desk informed me that there wasn’t anyone of that name registered at Princeton University, and that the only other student named Eva was an art major studying in Paris for the semester…I went to the coffee shop where I was supposed to meet her, and the owner told me that he didn’t recall anybody of such and such a description coming in the night before…And then it all made sense, in a nonsensical way…The cigarettes, the chess game, the bourbon with lemon…and the girl who was Eva Rippen…

(He stands and looks at the bust of Socrates)

Tombe: Socrates was famous for saying “I know that I don’t know”…but I’m not even sure of that anymore. The only thing I know is the proof…what it can do…and the one thing it can’t…

Tombe: I find myself hoping, maybe praying, that the postmodernists and the ancients have got it right. That the human subject is fragmented and crippled, and that reality is beyond our feeble faculties…that we’re nothing but cuckoo birds popping out and chirping when the gears click into place, and ever after slinking back into the dark ignorance from whence we came.

(He picks up a wrinkled piece of paper from his desk and studies it once again)

Tombe: I had a moment of doubt, like David did, when I was just starting my doctorate at Oxford. I thought about the preposterousness of any field that aimed at figuring out first causes, at figuring out the nature of the self and of the universe. Because none of it is necessary to eat, sleep, seek shelter from the elements, and avoid predators. This idea of “self-consciousness” is nothing but an evolutionary surplus. Philosophy itself is nothing but an artifact of being on the top of the food chain for too long. What an arrogance it is to assume that existence hinges on puny human thoughts…that man is master of reality…They talked about great MINDS, biologists, physicists, economists, mathematicians…all the brilliance in the contents of their MINDS…inscribed on wood pulp and shelved all over the world. Millions and billions and trillions and quadrillions of pieces of MIND…They never stopped to think that BRAIN is prior to mind. Mind is brain’s masturbation. Mind is the leftovers, the flab over the muscle of instinct…The body…the MEAT of man…would exist whether or not its synapses couple in such a way that its lungs and larynx and tongue can manufacture a doubt.

(Pause)

Tombe: I’d like that, actually. If that were true, then maybe I could relax, quit my job, burn my books and live on an island somewhere. But here I am. Cogito ergo sum. And if it weren’t for me, for this MIND…then David would still be alive and Eva Rippen would still BE…

(Pause)

So all that is left is this (Holds up paper)…Seven simple propositions…Seven steps to oblivion. And it is inevitable.

(Tombe exits through the door to stage center, the same lecture hall as the previous day. He walks toward the lecturn, picks up a piece of chalk and turns to the class)

Tombe: We’ll be working on something new today…a proof…(turns and begins writing on the board)…Let us assume that through reason…

(Voice quiets as lights fade)

New Tricks

"Gerald, did you hear me? You've, uhh, gone somewhat catatonic." As my boss blathered on I prepared the cogent response that I knew would save my skin and impress my peers.

"No. No I'm not." Damn. It had sounded better in my head.

"Yes you are." He sighed. "No one wants to fire you, Fred. It's just something that happens. Now and then. In these hard economic times."

"If no one wants to fire me, then how is it happening?"

He was silent for a moment before saying, "Fine. Very few people wanted to fire you." He shuffled papers and looked at his watch. "Look, Fred, we both know this isn't the end of the world for you."

"Damn right it isn't." This wasn't the end of the world for me. "What do you mean?"

"You're a respected, preeminent researcher in your field. Everyone in the Labs has a copy of your book on their shelf." It's true: my book was a veritable litmus test for economists the world over. Any schmuck can name-drop Einstein or Hawking (that publicity slut of an author. You think he really needs the wheelchair? I've seen him get drunk at conferences and do karaoke). Only the truly initiated, those who've dug deeper, know my name.

"Great, you're right. Thank you Ari. So, I'll just submit my resume, excuse me, my CV, to a few search committees. I'll start my new appointment next fall, and formally retire in, say, October." From January 2nd, that was 9 months to start a new life: swift, but doable.

"Well, Gerald, you do have six months vacation saved up. We were thinking maybe you could take it starting now." That sounded fine. "Oh, and if you could have your office cleared out, we have an intern starting tomorrow."



"Melinda, hi, how nice to see you," I said after she had slammed the car door but before she lifted the trendy sunglasses to her forehead. I hope she appreciated how I had rushed back from work to get here by 5:30 (I was going to leave early, but when I realized it was my last day, I figured I owed them the full 8 hours.)

"Hello Gerald. Jeff wanted me to say thank you again for agreeing to take care of Chris." Chris (who was Jeff(who was Melinda(who was my ex-wife)'s husband)'s son), was already moving his belongings out of their Grand Cherokee and into my garage.

"Hey, Melinda, no problem, really, listen: anytime you need anything, " I paused for emphasis, "anything, I want you to know I'm here for you."

"Huh? Oh, that's great." She finished applying her lipstick. "Listen, Jeff and I have a flight leaving in two hours, so I have to run." As beautiful and ephemeral as a top quark, she was gone.

"So, uhh, Chris," I paused for want of something to say, "do you like guest bedrooms?"



At dinner that night, I had my daily first scotch. Its bouquet included coffee, tobacco, and licorice, the pamphlet enclosed in the box promised me. I myself tasted at least one of these flavors, though I'd be hard-pressed to say which. With each sip, I asked it for its essence, and it responded vociferou--

"Can I try some of that?"

"Well, Chris, I'm not really sure. After all, you are under--"

"Linda lets me have wine with dinner."

"You call her Linda?" I started pouring him a glass. "Did she ask for that or..."

"Actually, my dad calls her that, I guess I just sorta picked it up."

He accepted the glass offered and downed it in one gulp. "Whoo!" he said, trying to remember how to breathe. "Strong, but hey, for 86 proof, you drink what ya gotta, right?" He glanced at the empty glassware in his hand, then back up. "So, you still love her, huh?"

"Chris, I realize it's good, but it's still just a scotch--" "Oh, you mean 'Melly'," if he can have a pet nickname, so can I, "well, I guess, no. No. Definitely not." "Why, does she?"

"It's cool if you do, whatever, I won't get mad or anything. I don’t even know what she's doing with a schmuck like my dad."

"Fine, you pried it out of me, I do. I do! Is that such a crime? I know it's been seven years, but I'm a--"

"Mind if I have another?"

"No no, help yourself," he did, "where was I? Ah yes, I'm a different man now. Better. More romantic. I mean, what could be sweeter than taking care of her step-son for a few months?"

"Certainly not whisking her away to a third honeymoon in the Parisian Spring, recently unloaded of a pesky progeny."

I'm glad he saw my point. Chris was a good kid. "So, the first time I see her after she gets back, I plan to declare my love. I have it all organized: first, I'm going to pry her away from whatever she's doing. I'll figure that out on the moment. Then, I'm going to read from a prepared statement that I'm having a friend who's an English Professor assign as a class exercise."

"Yes, I see how you have all your bases covered." He poured himself another $10 glass of scotch that was older than he was. "So, what do you do?"

"Well, I'm a physicist."

"So do you build accelerators and shit?"

"Oh heavens no. I'm a theoretician."

"So you just think about things?"

"Not just things. Tiny particles that can never be detected or used."

"And there are... other people... who are interested in this?"

"Oh, tons. There's a whole community. We have our own conferences and our own nicknames for thoughts."

"Wow, so this is, like, published?"

"Of course. Several times. And cited."

"So I could just walk into a library and find your stuff? Hey, mind if I shoot another?" We were such good friends that he didn't even wait for my response before reaching for the bottle.

"No, not at all--well, not just any library. But if you happen to be walking through a building housing postdoctoral physicists, then sure."

"Don't you work for that really big company?"

"Synergy Labs, but I got fired."

"That sucks."

"Yeah it does. I mean, the sheer disgrace--"

"But at least you get, what, two weeks' severance pay?"

"Yeah. But it still sucks."

"Sure."

"And then the 6 months' paid vacation I have stored up."

"I guess that makes it a little better."

"And after that, I'm on 60% pension."

"Really?"

"And I get to keep all the royalties from my book sales."

"So you get paid for not working?"

"Yeah. Man my life sucks."



By 9PM, I had also had my weekly second scotch, my fortnightly fourth, and my monthly lost count. I realized how hard today had been on Chris, a senior, having to move several blocks away from the bed he's slept in for the past two years. So I politely took my leave and my bottle of scotch. I wandered into my garage.

It's such an odd mix, seeing a garage split between the young and the old. On the one side, the trappings of what was just 6 hours earlier a very happy office: books, plaques, witty Dilbert clippings. And there, on the other side, the symbol of all that is young: a guitar, posters, trendy clothes, and a skateboard.

--he's so young. He definitely doesn't know how to drink a nice scotch. He doesn't savor the subtleties in the nose, or the after-taste. The way he drinks it like he's doing it--

I'm on to something here, so I stand and start to pace.

--like he's doing it just to-- Just to-- have fun. What a nice way to live, for the next second. Why don't I ever carpe diems anymore? He's such a punk. Punks get to loiter. I want to loiter, to reclaim my tomorrows in the name of my yesterdays. Ooh, that's poetic. It's never too late to be a juvenile delinquent.

I am not, admittedly, the most coordinated of men in the best of circumstances. But I think that my misstep in this case was fate: I put my foot down. On Chris's skateboard.

And as I lay on the ground, three seconds later, looking at the ceiling, I had a new feeling of fun. The adrenaline was rushing through my body and my hearing was sensitive enough that I could hear the rush of the ball bearings in the still-spinning wheels of the upturned skateboard. I had to do this.



Teenagers skateboard, how hard can it be? I thought. But after a few abortive attempts to stay atop the beast, I realized I need help. So I turned to my trusty friend: Google. It turns out, unfortunately, that most of the skateboarding population either (a) cannot write HTML or (b) is only concerned with tricks. Well, thank you very much, there are those of us for whom a new form of transportation would be enough. I watched a few videos of cool tricks done, and more of cool tricks attempted.

Listen, I can do this. I went inside and searched through my closet for one of my tweed jackets, one that has leather patches on the elbows for protection. I live in a nice flat neighborhood, so I made sure to find a steep hill near-by: I was going to do this right.

The view from the top of High St. was dark, but that didn't matter. What mattered is that I could get on this board. First one foot, there, and then the second. And I had done it! I was on a skateboard! And I was starting to go downhill! I could get onto a skateboard, and I could go downhill! I just had no clue as to how to get off a moving skateboard. Or steer one. Or slow one down.



"Oh my God, Gerald, are you all right?"

"Oh, Chris, I'm sorry, did I wake you up?"

"It's 9:45. Who's asleep at Nine-Forty-- Nevermind. What happened?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine." I was. Unless there was internal bleeding. I thought that there could be- nope, just a bruise. "Really, I'm supposed to be your guardian. What are you doing?"

He held up a book. "Figuring out how to write a good admissions essay, I guess. Listen, Gerald, maybe we should get you a band-aid or something."

"You don't need to worry about getting into college. I can help you. Back when I was a visiting adjunct prof (by courtesy), I sat on an undergrad admissions committee. Where are you applying?"

"Uhh, Princeton." He looked across the room for the mugger that he no doubt was assuming I beat up. "Did you," he paused tactfully, and bless him for that, "did you ride my skateboard?"

"Yes, very sweet. Y'know, I went to Princeton."

"Really?" That got his interest. "Undergrad or doctorate?"

"It was on a Tuesday." "Besides, the jacket protected me. See, my elbow, not so bad. If only I had thought to protect my legs." It's true, the shorts do nothing. "Think about it, Chris, jackets for legs. We could be rich."

"Called pants. You really think you could help me get in?"

"Of course."

"Tell you what, you help me get in to Princeton, and I'll teach you how to skateboard."

"How 'bout I'll focus on helping you get into Princeton, and you just stick to teaching me how to skateboard?" I said, trying to tactfully allow him to retract his error.

"Sure. But, you have to promise to do whatever I tell you when it comes to the art of the board. And number one is: go put on some Neosporin."



The next morning, I rose at the stroke of 1:30 PM. Chris, true to his word, took me to the mall.

"I've been to this mall before," I said.

"Yeah, it's pretty tight. They have an awesome food court, and the security guys are pretty loose."

"Yes, and there's one clerk at Brooks Brothers who's exceedingly courteous."

The first store we entered was covered in so many stickers and labels that I was surprised when the store mutt, whom I discovered attempting to mount first my right and then my left leg, had no license prominently displayed.

"Hey, Tommy."

"Hey Chris," said a man who was apparently Tommy.

"This is my friend, Gerald."

"Hey man."

"It's nice to meet you, Tommy, is it?" I extended my hand and he nodded in its general direction.

"We're here to get a board for him," Chris said.

"Wow. What do you want?"

"Let me get one of those comet decks, Indy trucks, these nine-ball wheels, a set of risers, and what do you think for ball bearings?"

"With those wheels, it doesn't matter, you'll be cruising."

"Great."

"All right, well, thank you very much, Tommy," I said. "So, when can I pick it up? I'd sorta like to get started quickly, so if you could ask the factory to hurry up--"

"Do you want grip tape?"

"Grip tape?"

"Yes," Chris said.

"You sure you want this, Mister?" Tommy said. "This could end up costing a bit."

"Oh," I said, truthfully a little dejected.

"But this is a great board. These are the best trucks out there."

"Well," I steeled myself, "when I decided to take up skateboarding, I wasn't going to do it half-way." I pulled out my wallet. "So put the first two-thousand on this card, cause I get double frequent flier miles on it, and the rest on this one." I triumphantly threw my two cards, one gold and the other platinum, down on counter.

They both looked at me, and I was confident I had won them over with my confidence. "That'll come to $140.72." He swiped the card.

"For the down payment? And the rest when the board arrives, or--"

"Here she is." Tommy handed me my first skateboard. "Why don't you test her out, see how the tightness is."

"I don't think anyone wants him getting on a skateboard in front of anything sharp or expensive yet," Chris said. "C'mon, let's get you some clothes. Bye Tommy."

"Yeah, see ya Chris. Later Doc." We walked out.

"I have clothes."

"I mean ones that you can skate in. Those penny loafers, not going to be great for grinding."

"I guess I see your point. Not at all good for grinding. And I sure am excited to grind."

"What kind of music do you listen to?"

"Oh, gee, all kinds. Everything from Baroque to the Beach Boys. I mean, you name it."

"And new tunes. C'mon, in here." In Sam Goody, Chris handed me a basket and we walked down the aisles. In went a flurry of bands, most of which started with "The". The Ataris, The Get Up Kids, The Pixies, and The Machine, Rage Against. "You ever listened to any punk?" I stared. "Punk music," he clarified.

"Oh. Well, some Clash. They're punk, right? But I'm going to have to insist here, Chris, that I don't need new music. I'm sure these kids today are 'fun', but musically, can they hold a candle to Tchaikovsky?" I scoffed preemptively.

"Gerald, here's the thing. You don't listen to punk for the profound musical progressions. You listen to punk because its 103 beats per minute make you concentrate on the gravel that's flying under you at 32 miles per hour. Fugues really have less of a survival instinct built in."



"Do I really have to?"

"Do you have to skateboard? Well, I guess only if you want to learn how to skateboard."

"Fine." To be fair to me, I wasn't close to tears, but to be fair to Chris, I wasn't far either. We had been out here for about half an album, which in terms of punk is about 15 minutes. And Chris had never once gotten off his skateboard. Which, conservatively, meant he had been on a skateboard for approximately 14 minutes, 32 seconds longer than I have. "Can we just come back in the morning?"


He swept his hand, pointing to the empty, dark expanse of concrete that in the day was the parking lot of Synergy Labs. "Would you rather have cars trying to run you over?"

"I'm scared of falling. It hurts."

"How would you know? You haven't fallen yet. You've jumped off the board many times. And I've certainly seen you needlessly flail your arms in a manner that, I promise you, does nothing for your balance. And even if you do, by some miracle of science, manage to fall off the board you refuse to get on, you're wearing pads on your elbows, wrists, knees, and shins."

"And a cup."

"Yes, and a cup. So, just get on the board. There's a real gentle downslope here."

I got on the board. I fell. But, to my credit, I got up only one punk song later, which in laymen's terms is a verse and a chorus.

"So," I said, analyzing, "I think maybe I'm missing the Idea of Skateboarding."

"What Idea of Skateboarding? You step on the board," Chris said.

"So, how does turning work?"

"You lean one way. And when you lean, the trucks turn, depending on how much this nut is tightened."

"Ohhhhhhh. Oh. I get it. And how do you go over cracks?"

"You sorta ride the cr-" Chris realized that explanation wouldn't help at all. "OK, so, imagine the board is a lever with two fulcra."



Having a skater punk who has also taken AP Physics can be very useful. The Internet was missing this, my secret to becoming the best 50+ skateboarder in my city. After that lecture, even though the teacher had no whiteboard, I took to skateboarding like a fish takes to very shallow water. This was easy. Skateboarding was nothing but an n-body problem with friction and finite rigidity. Why don't they just tell you that? In fact, I was so into the music and the hill that I didn't notice the security truck until the rent-a-cop shouted at us.

"Excuse me, Excuse me, Sirs. This is private property, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"Oh c'mon," Chris said. "We're not hurting anyone. We're just having some fun."

"Chris? Is that you?" the guard monkey asked.

"David? You're kidding me. Hey, Gerald, come here, this is my friend David from school; David, this is Gerald, I'm teaching him to skateboard."

"Not here you're not," said David. Chris's face dropped and David's voice cracked. "Sorry, liability and all that."

"But what about the first amendment? Right to freely assemble. I don't see any gates." I unclipped the employee badge I still kept on my belt and waved it in front of David.

"Oh, I'm very sorry, sir. Have a pleasant night. I'll tell the guy behind me that you're here, don't worry about a thing." He paused. "Chris, what are you doing hanging out with a level 41 employee?" He looked back at me. "I mean, nothing. Sorry. I shouldn't pry. Have a great night sir, let me know if I can be of any service. Uh, nice to see you Chris." The Suburban pulled away.

We stood for a moment; I think Chris was dumb-founded, but I was just appreciating the adrenaline coursing through my veins.

"Cool," he said, and hopped on his board to circle the lot a few times.

"Yeah, I guess so," and did the same.



By Mid-March, I had moved up to making an ass of myself on slightly less easy tricks. As much as I tried to convince him school was for chumps, Chris would only skip so many days, so most of my trips were solo. By the time I got home, Chris was normally draped over the couch, reading my Investor's Business Daily.

"Man, ollie-ing really takes it out of me. Can I get you anything to drink?"

"Sure," he said. "Could I have some soda?" I grabbed a Mountain Dew for both of us, and threw him his. He responded with the look you would imagine Sherlock Holmes breaking out to stare down a monkey. "Soda water."

"How about," I proposed, "with Vodka?" I doused mine in the blanket of a liquid that only described itself as "charcoal-filtered."

"How about," he countered, "Scotch and Soda?"

"Fine, Mr. Forbes." That last part wish a sarcastic drawl. "Just be careful reading those so much, you might go blind."

He looked up. "I thought it was something else that made you go blind."

"You look excited, I was anticipating." "Listen, want to go grab some cement?"

"No thanks, I'm in first place in the fantasy stock market and I'd like to stay that way. Listen, how do you think this split is going to affect Synergy stock?"

"This what? This split?"

"You know, the Spli-- Gerald? You knew Synergy was splitting, right? Gerald? Who are you calling?"

"Ari," I said into the telephone before I realized it was still ringing. "Ari, yes, hi, thank you: how is this split going to affect my pension?" And after two minutes, "great, thanks."

"Well?" Chris said.

"So, they're splitting synergy into two, right? Well, each spin-off picked who they wanted to give pensions to. So, whichever company I'll draw my livelihood from should be sending me details of the plan today."

He highlighted a line of newsprint. "Sounds like should I sell Synergy."

"Hey, this is serious. My future financial state depends on what's in today's mail." Had the mail not been there when I got outside, I probably would have gone crazy. But as it was, I was just frantic. "Let's see, royalty check, invitation to give a keynote, the issue of that journal I guest edited, ah, Here!"

"They sent you a packet?"

"Umm, something like that."

"Well, which spin-off of Synergy do you no longer work for but still get paid by? Syn or Ergy?"

I held up the envelopes in question. "Both."



"Wow, I don't know how you do it," I said as Brad walked towards me, having just nailed an amazing line. This skate park was ours. His and mine. Brad was a gnarly skater. Brad was my bud. Brad was in 8th grade. As he sat down on the concrete, I handed him a metallic pouch of fruit-ish juice goodness. "No, really, I mean, I don't know how you do it. I'm pretty sure it's impossible to change your momentum like that as you come out of the manual."

Brad sipped from his Capri Sun. "I hear the same guys who made the F-14 studied the bumblebee, and proved it can't fly."

Exactly! "He can't! Their thrust-to-weight is too low."

"Well, no one told the bee that."

"How do they do it?"

"Look, Gerald, I don't know how I do it, either. But I do it."

"Well, I don't think I could do that."

"And you can't, if you think about it. That's your problem. You know about those moms who can lift a bus when it's on top of their baby? Your mind can only know the laws of physics when it has time. But if you put it into the situation, it will do what it has to. The only way to get out of some of these situations is to have been dumb enough to get into."

"No, I mean, the skateboard is a beautiful example of physics in the real world. I learned how to board just by thinking about the moments and forces involved."

"Well, maybe you can become a good skater by rational thought and consideration. But the only way to become a great one is to stop thinking. I should know. I'm in Honors Pre-Algebra."



I'm glad word of my retirement party got out to the high schoolers, if only so my kegs of Natty didn't go to waste. I'm sure all my colleagues and co-workers were a bit shocked, at first, to arrive in their suits and dresses to find me in my ironic t-shirt and Teflon-coated artificial-polyester pants. But I think that by the end, George Newberger was getting used to the mosh pit.

"Hey, do you know how to do this?" one sophomore fumbling with a tap over the second keg asks.

"Of course I do," answered a second, who snatched it out of the first's hands.

"Man, pretty crazy party, huh?" said a third in line, to me.

"Yeah."

"I hear the guy who threw it is trying to be a punk. Like it's something you can just put on one day."

"Really? I mean, no shit."

"Man, posers like that just annoy me so much." He finally got some of my foam into his cup. "Don't I see you at the skate park sometimes?"

"Yeah, I try."

"That's pretty cool, man. So you know what I mean about other people trying to come in and appropriate our culture, right? Like vultures. Fucking culture vultures."

"Yeah, I think so." He faded back into the casual din of the party.

I got my own ration of foam that promised nigh on four ounces of actual beer, and noticed Chris. "Hey, have a beer?"

"No thanks, I don't have to, I just got into Princeton!" There are moments at a party when it becomes inexplicably quiet: the music dies as suddenly as the conversation. The second before Chris exclaimed that in a voice loud enough to be barely intelligible over the party was one of those moments.

The physicists in the room were the first to react, most of them having been trained for years to drop whatever was happening in their lives to pay homage to any mention of the Ivies. A small but excited golf clap spread through the room.

And to be honest, I didn't care when everyone else in the room individually but simultaneously decided to throw their beer on or at Chris: carpets are transient, but that moment will last forever. In most people, skateboarding is a positive enough attribute to overshadow any other minor character flaw. But somehow, despite the redemptive avocation of riding a slab of wood on top of four wheels, Chris was still enough of a prick to fit right in at Princeton.



My house, it turns out, was perfectly situated with respect to the grocery store: the trip was downhill enough to be easy and fun, but slight enough that the trip back was not daunting carrying a bag of groceries. And today, I was going to ride it. The whole way. My feet would be on-board the whole time: through crosswalks, over cracks in the sidewalk, even at that one curb at the intersection of Johnson (Ave.) and Johnson (St.) where I have to just trust myself that if I keep my feet on the deck, my feet will stay on the deck.

And I had it. I was gliding. I was dancing with the concrete. I was feeling it up through its blouse. Ha! Pedestrians were courteous enough, and no animals, feral or domesticated, attempted to position themselves under my whee--

"Nice board." I looked up to find a woman, about my age, riding a longboard and talking to me.

"Yours isn't bad either. Downtown?"

"Schaeffer's."

"Me too."

We rode for a while. I sped up, and she sped up, then she slowed down, and so did I. We didn't talk. We didn't need to.

"How long have you been riding?" I asked.

"About a year. You?"

"A few months." I jumped over a pine cone. Wait, I jumped! And not because I thought it would be cool, or nifty, or show-offy. I jumped because it was a useful thing to do.

"Hey," she said, "is that Expedition waving at you?"

"Oh, guess so." Its window was rolled down. "Hey Melinda." I rolled past.

"She seemed pissed."

"No, that's just how she looks." "Or maybe, that's just the way she looks around me." My cellphone rang. "Excuse me for a sec." We rode. I flicked it open. "Gerald?"

"Gerald, listen, I need you right now. Jeff and I-" she sniffled, "are going through a rough time."

"I'm sorry, I'm busy right now. Maybe we could hang out Thursday? And tell Chris congratulations."

"Oh fuck Chris, I thought you'd always be here for me. Instead you're out boardskating with some hussy? Do you even know her name? Do you love her?"

"I love this moment." I closed the phone. I looked at my fellow rider. The old me would have been counting down the blocks to our destination. The old me would have asked her her name. The new me was trying to ride a skateboard.

I give up.

DRF

Mens’ Station

Daniel Foster


I found Jim in the toilet the other day,
Hands braced on the stained
Steel and porcelain of the sink.

I didn’t say Hi or make eye contact,
But went to the stall he had come out of
And pissed into the pink water.

Zipping my fly, I saw him in the mirror,
Pulling at the places where his long sleeves
Stuck to his forearms.

He told me once, when we were friends,
That it didn’t hurt much
Except for the first time.

I suppose it’s interesting—2003
And all of Jim’s little suicides;
Both men and women can bleed their burdens.

Jon the Martyr
Dan Foster


____High School gave us three-stories of brick-walled
Salvation, saturated with pupils and masters atop
A green belly of a hill. It looked invincible—
A massive brown chest of mortar and marble spreading
Its Golden Rule up and out into columned wings.
There was even a cupola for our clock-tower,
But none of us knew what that meant.
In the mornings we frosh would mass
Like pubescent locusts, buzzing and fluttering
Our way into its mouth. As the bells jarred and
We breathed the clapped chalk dust, some sat erect
In their molded desks, already fresh and antsy
With thoughts of Ivy Leagues and Blue Chips;
Some were born knowing but others would die
Searching…these mostly shuffled from box to box,
Niche to niche, clique to clique, unaware of what
They didn’t know and inescapably frumpy in their
Skins. And in the vast gray between were the
Stereotypes. They wore their masks and spoke their
Tongues and never much exerted themselves, resigned
To the almost not-unpleasant inevitability
That they would one day be issued sedans and three-
Bedroom ranches on quarter acre lots. But none of us
was ready for Jon. He shrieked silence until
The void was hoarse and penned his mantras
So hard into his forearms that they dug out
Flesh and nerve and vein, until pain became
Indistinguishable from pulse. We heard no Jon,
We spoke no Jon and so we saw no Jon. But Oh,
Christ, did Jon see us.

…At night when the cupola tolled queer hours
And _____ HS sat back on its haunches like a sphinx,
Jon gave himself to numbness and drifted to Littleton—
And to Waco and to Golgatha for that matter—
And plotted his revenge.

That ink will fade in the next few years;
Your poems are but paper tears.

--D.R.F.

The Lymerick Madness Continues...
(We here at The Enfranchised promise never to use inside jokes unless they are absolutely necessary. That being said here are a few.)

Ode to Daniel Timothy Bentley
By Daniel Richard Foster

There once was a man of Stanford
Who commanded a Mongolian horde
Which he led into battle
Just south of Seattle
And wound up on Microsoft's Board


Ode to Our Mutual Friend
By Daniel Richard Foster

There once was a Yaley named Sean
Whose speech inspired a yawn.
Till, with awe and surprise
The crowd looked down with their eyes
And noticed his trousers were gone.


Ode to Wishful Thinking
By Daniel Richard Foster

There was a parliamentary body
Whose delegates acted quite naughty.
Till, with consent of the chair
They were dragged out by the hair
And summarily flushed down the potty.

Happy Hour
Daniel R. Foster

The night is younger than either of us,
I tell him, and its future’s twice as bright.
So go for her, I say, drink her down—
This beauty’s all you need in a perfect fifth
Of Stoli: Transparent, Ice-Cold, Tasteless.
But he won’t have any of it; sorry bastard
Just limps his way back to a wobbly stool
To douse his blue-balls with another Dewars’,
Tells me ‘blah blah wife and blah fucking kids’
—Who gives a shit? Missus and the runts will
Still be there in the morning I tell him,
And with any luck, that beauty won’t. Wake up late
Enough and she’ll be gone, no continental breakfast
Or awkward sidelong glances across someone
Else’s sheets. Come on (I slap him on the shoulder),
We’re just machines that turn booze into piss,
Nothing else to it. ‘Not like I could anyway’
He says to his empty glass. Bullshit. Courage
Is overrated, all you need is a shot of Jack
And a lack of dignity (he doesn’t laugh).
Look, I don’t care about the coffee spoons
You measure out life with, or the flickering
Moment of your greatness. Whatever doesn’t
Kill you makes you drunker; life hands you lemons—
‘And I squeeze them into my eyes and cry for days.’
Oh for Chrissakes, then make it a whiskey sour,
‘I can’t stand the taste’ (he shakes his head).
Too bad (I sigh), though better me than you.
I straighten my tie and head off to that beauty
And call back to the poor bastard:
If alcohol tasted good…we’d all be dead.

1979-

A prophet came out of Riyadh
And angrily shouted "Jihad!"
Meanwhile, in the West,
Carter wished him the best
And nobody thought it was odd.

D.R.F.

Ode to my Creative Writing Professor-

By Daniel Foster


There was an old man from Modesto
Who wrote a discrete manifesto
Then, offwards toward Yale,
He placed it on sale
And fucked a young boy named Ernesto

"[insert sensitive, insightful and and quaint notions about war, peace and man's will to power, add sober attempt to reconcile complex feelings towards current international situation]. Anyway, I hope they have some cool documentary footage when this is all over."
--In Conversation

Uselysses
Daniel Lord Foster


It little profits that an idle fool,
With all the world’s virtue and vice to learn,
Should waste away in secondary school
And linger ‘til the worse does take its turn.
For little I have seen and less I’ve known,
Playing neither hero nor villain’s part;
Never have God’s graces or wrath been shown
To me, nor have I gone with hungry heart.
But I know the texts of a thousand arts
Begin and end with one sacrosanct word.
And, echoing from all bloody ramparts,
Its melodious, doomsday tolls are heard.
So I reach for where the western stars shine
With but that word, “love”, and fair Madeline.

Why my conversations are the best ever:
(The names have been changed to protect the innocent)

FOSTERKID1: The Economist this week had a picture from a protest of a guy holding up a sign that said "Bush Has a Small Penis"
YaleBoy123: well i'll be damned... i DO have something in common with george w.
FOSTERKID1: nice
YaleBoy123: oh, so did you ever remember what exactly it was that you wanted to tell me?
FOSTERKID1: Fuckin A, no. I wish I had a dedicated line to you so every time I read something interesting in a book I can make some wry comment.
YaleBoy123: like your batman to my robin?
FOSTERKID1: "Holy Obnoxious Op-Ed Batman!"

My predictions:
Hostilities have not yet started in the Gulf, though the ultimatum delivered Monday ends in about 80 minutes.
But if I know Bush, he won't attack. Why? The element of surprise.
If you'll notice, he said hostilities would commence at a time of our choosing. The deadline will arrive... and then pass. Unceremoniously. And there will not yet be war.
We will wait. And there will not yet be war.
One day will pass, then two. A week. And a little before a fortnight later, there will be another press conference, at which Bush will reveal the grand purpose of his preparations for war.

To make the biggest April Fool's Prank. Ever.

If the Enfranchised has slowed recently, it is because we writers have been pushing our feeble brains through the strenuous quadrathalon of classes [Foster's Note: I take a PENTATHALON of classes]. And if there's one thing the too-brief trip to the edge of my abilities has taught me, it's that I don't have enough intelligence to outdo human stupidity.

I could never imagine giving up the incorrect ("French Fries") for the inane ("Freedom Fries"). Nor would I have the audacity to propose shunning Tommy Hilfiger for the stylings of such "authentic" brands as Sean John and J.Lo. I can still hardly believe that there is one prep school for skiers and snowboarders, let alone several dozen. All this from the New York Times, which has not been New York's best humor periodical for at least the past 7 years.

At this moment, it seems obvious to me that it's easier to secure my fortune by lampooning the failures of others than attempting successes of my own. Some of you might miss the creation for the ranting, and I promise you as half-heartedly as any man ever has: when I get the time, I will return to my more properly artistic endeavors. Until then, I will restrict myself to that form of writing whose composition is easiest and fame most temporary: satire.

Diet Coke was originally a ritual beverage of the ancient Greeks, known as shkohonaplasti (literally: Cancer Juice). Oompa Loompas picked aspartame berries and, after distilling for 94 minutes, created this holy drink. It was then known best as Ambrosia Lite, or drink of the lesser Gods, such as Thithiuth, God of Stigmatizing Speech Impediments and Pheremone, Goddess of Leg-Humping and Overcome Hangnails. It was dropped from the Latin Pantheon when it was found to induce anorexia in the Vestal Virgins. So begins the hidden history of Diet Coke.
The drink was resurrected during the days of Christ and considered as the official refreshment of the Last Supper. An early manuscript, recently recovered, has, "drink this carbonated sugar water in remembrance of me." 11th hour negotiations fell apart when Jesus refused to wear the logo of his prospective patch during crucifixion. We only narrowly escaped "give us this day our daily caffeine."
In Paris during the 20's, it was briefly experimented with as a hallucinogen. It was similar to absinthe in its despicable taste and powerful narcotic content, with the added benefit of carbonation, still a novelty to the pre-modernists. Its time had still not come, however, as writers found its high to be unsuitable to any writing more substantial than Jane Austen adaptations set in the as-yet-undeveloped Los Angeles. Diet Coke once more had to retreat from the limelight, waiting for its time to surface at last.
But when it did, it sure did. The Coca-Cola corporation could barely meet the demand and did everything they could to handicap the wunderkind that so badly bruised Original Coke's ego that New Coke had to be brought in temporarily during Original's covered up nervous breakdown. Even the hiring of Paula Abdul as a spokesperson did little to slow sales of this incomprehensible beverage.
Diet Coke is the last of a dying breed: overindulgences to be had. Restaurants, long the rightful home of gluttony, have been whittled down by the State of California to a shadow of their former themselves. Its laws prohibit the compulsive smoking that is, I am convinced, directly responsible for every decent word of literature written in the past three centuries. Its fashions, slowly propagating up from LA, conspire to shrink dishes until they resemble nothing so much as a true meal's leftovers. Its economics bring entrée-priced appetizers. Nothing is so depressing as trying to drown one's sorrows in mozzarella sticks that cost $1.20. Each.
So here I write in my beverage-induced inspiration. I managed to down a full gallon before the Denny's dispenser ran out and I shrank off, not making a fuss over their claimed all-you-can-drink policy. The thrill is leaving me as I type, but I still enjoy it. By now, my blood is brown and artificially sweet and no doubt my urine contains enough caffeine to explode the hearts of mice, babies, and other such small animals. Just the way I like it.

-Bentley

Q: How many mathematicians does it take to change a light bulb?

A: None, all the components are there, it should work.

A Foster Derivative

Social scientists are people who, when faced with the reality that people don't behave like math says they should, try more complex math.
-Bentley

Is it just me or does this Khalid Shaikh Mohammed guy look like a deranged Ron Jeremy???
--Dah-Nayel Shaikh Foztehr Al-Fosterei

The Price of Freedom, Episode 2.
By Bentley
"Goooooooood morning, Freedom and Atlantis!" The weak disc jockey impression ended and the wake up song replaced it. The wake up song was a shuttle tradition: meant to give a few minutes to the crew to shake off the morning grogginess they all felt. For most, it was because they had just woken up, but for a few, it was because they were never able to sleep. Today was "Space Oddity", a weak pun on the Anglicization of Foma Filatov's name.
"This is Ground Control to Major Tom," David Bowie's smooth voice sang as the astronauts slipped back into utilitarian consciousness. "Planet Earth is blue/And there's nothing I can do."
After an appropriate musical interlude, Capcom's voice pulled them firmly into the minute-by-minute existence men must live in them when their two-week's vacation costs more than they will make in their life.
"Big day today, Gentleman. And woman. We attach the Wallace Lab to Freedom. Finally, we'll have a space station that isn't just an outpost for three people at a time but is truly able to run as many experiments as we want.
"Colonel Warfield, well, you're doing a damn fine job commanding the shuttle, so we're going to keep you there. You'll be observing the construction of the space station, as well as the experiments on the space shuttle, and generally making sure your craft remains flight worthy. Message from your wife: she loves you.
"Major Daithwaite, you're actually going to be on Freedom today, observing the activities and helping the team to bring the new capsule up," Capcom's voice continued, preemptively overruling the objection Chris was scrambling to make when he heard his name. "We know you're the pilot of Atlantis, but Major Tom, err, Major Foma, I mean, Major Filatov is required by the Russian Air Force to do some flying every six months to keep his pilot's license. You already performed an excellent take-off and docking, yesterday you performed the main burn of the mission to lift the space station, and there's still deorbit left, so today, let Filatov pilot the shuttle one time around the station to get the module where it needs to be. In typical test pilot fashion, I have messages from about six girls, all of whome love you"
"Major Filatov, as we discussed, you'll be piloting the shuttle. Since you've already been in space for four months, no one seems to have anything new to say.
"Cosmonaut Lukin, you'll be on Atlantis observing, too. Try to make sure Filatov doesn't crash into anything.
"Captain Stanley, well, here's your chance to have the Space Station you keep bugging us for. You'll open up the module and start powering it up after the spacewalk happens. Your wife left a message for you: the judge accepted your faxed signature on the forms since you're not going to able to make it to court anytime soon. I'm sorry, that should have read, your 'ex'-wife left a message for you.
"Dr. Livingstone. Quite the day for you, Martha. You have greetings from your congressmen, your governor, your principal, just about everyone. Oh, the National Education Association, for being the first teacher-in-space to, well," the waking space behemoth was silent for a moment in silent remembrance of Christa McAuliffe's supreme sacrifice as the first teacher-in-space on Challenger. "For being the first teacher in space.
"Dr. Ford, you're of course one of the spacewalkers who's going to be making everybody else wait for him today. Oh, and the National Society of Black Engineers congratulates you. They say, 'Trevor Ford is exactly the type of role model young people need.'
"Dr. Gatsfield, you have no greetings from the National Society of Black Engineers, presumable because you're not Black.
"Dr. Ross, you have no greetings from the National Society of Black Engineers, presumably because you're not an engineer. Apparently Applied Physics just doesn't make the cut. Yes, even from MIT. Oh, and don't forget that you'll be the other astronaut on the spacewalk pulling the Wallace Lab into place.
"Mr. Wagner, your stockbroker called. He said all your shares fell, but since you sold most of them to finance this trip, your loss in the stock market was less than it would have been otherwise. So, always look on the bright side of life. Speaking of which..."
Sometimes the ground controllers played a second wake up song, on days they thought the crew needed extra time to prepare themselves. Today, apparently, Monty Python's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" was appropriate. At least, it would make the world's most recent space tourist forget the loss of much of what he had worked his life for. Or at least, what his father and other male ancestors had worked most of their lives for.

"For life is quite absurd,
An' death's the final word,
You must always face the curtain with a bow,
Forget about your sin,
Give the audience a grin,
Enjoy it, it's you' last chance of the hour.
So, always look on the bright side of death,
Just before you draw your terminal breath."

To Be Continued...

The blog-ubiquitous links:

Article in the Stanford Daily (the *most* professional newspaper on campus):
Toledo Draws Mild Response

Followed today by the editorial:
Toledo a Suitable Choice (not yet online)

(Link now fixed for people who can't read my mind. Note: the humor here isn't the article, but the headline. Toledo? Toledo?! Toledo.)

Bentley, I offer this in friendship:

Cry on the outside and laugh on the inside.
Cut a stitch in time, pick up a penny on tails.
Procrastinate.
Masturbate.
Imitate.
Grab the bull by his balls and then run away.
Examine a gift horse's molars.
Wear white after labor day.
Ignore every bit of practical advice ever given to you by Benjamin Franklin.
Don't allow yourself the luxury of pondering all of Oscar Wilde's bittersweet musings.
Recognize altruisms as all-falsisms.
Disregard any list compiled by an ametaur that attempts to undo 5000 years of common sense.
Find your own fucking ethos.
Piss into the wind.
Eat with the wrong fork.
Eat with your hands.
Eat your hand.
Shoot your Ch'I all over her tits.
Publish a manifesto.
Don't listen to Emo.
Kiss the bad guy, save the night and kill the girl.
Ride on in from the sunrise.

The only way to become more interesting is to become more interest-ED.

--Fosteyricon.

There is a time that needn't come in every man's life, but has in mine: the dawning realization that I am a bad person. In earlier years, potential shadowed reality. Later, tightly-held naivete blinded me to signs until fate threw enough undeniable sings that I could no longer ignore. Unlike most essays, I share this not because it is generally applicable but because it is so personal. You'll never have to experience this. You are a decent person. Today wasn't my best of days.
In vino veritas. Latin fails me (and I it), but the gist is "drunk ex-girlfriends are never a good thing." You wake up the next morning either with another body in your bed or not having slept because she managed to salt the wounds you never knew you had, even through your supposedly-healed armor. In my case, it was both. Like I said, weird day.
I am competent, but not incredible, in my ambitions and a failure in all else. My faults are too numerous to summarize and too shameful to specify. I am unworthy of my position, and must either improve myself, which is impossible, or remove myself from it, which is unthinkable.
So, if you're reading this, you're probably an acquaintance of mine or a friend of an acquaintance. If you're the former, please forgive me; if you're the latter, please apologize profusely on my behalf to our mutual acquaintance. I'm sure you all understand that I'm going to retreat to my metaphorical cave, and as soon as I get the proper building permits, my physical one.
-Bentley

Ode.e.
Dan Foster

i sing of Falo bad at trig
Whose bloodless heart rejoiced in war:
A condescending subject-or

his wellbeloved proffesor (prig
Wesleyaner most distinctly read)
took erring falo soon in class;
but--through a host of overworked
TAs (first knocking out the head
of him) do through oily waters toll
that otherness which Arabs stroke
with Afghan rugs recently employed
anent this ruddy terroristhole,
While kindred Leftists provoke
allegience per glittering generalities--
Falo (being all too content
a corpse and wanting any rag
Upon what Zinn unto him gave)
Responds, without getting the ploy
"I will now burn your fucking flag"

Straightaway the tenured terd digressed
(Heading hurriedly towards the K Street protest)

But, though all kinds of professors
(A bored generation's redeyed pride)
their passive resistances were often terse
until for wear their Claritin
voices and berkenstocks were much the worse,
and egged the firstsemesterfrosh on
His rectum liberally with grease
by means of skillfully applied
epithets shouted from the street--
Falo (upon what were callused knees)
does most seriously repeat
"there is no shit I would not eat"

our residents,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the pinkojohnill'ych
a great big party, where he died

Chomsky (of His commercy infantile)
i pay to see;and Falo,too

preposterously because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you.

"Romantics are Quantum cynics."
--Another Sage Fosterism

Any romantic's admitted greatest fear is that their soulmate lives in China, Sri Lanka, Los Angeles, or some other exotic land and can never be known. But though fate can work in mysterious ways, it is not cruel and would never give with one hand only to taketh away with the other. This self-delusion is only to steal attention from the more rational and scarier fear: that their soulmate lives around the corner but still remains unknown.
This second fear is unbearable; the blame for loneliness lies squarely on the lonely. Your soulmate is everywhere and everyone. He is the man whose parking spot you stole. She is the DMV agent who won't cut you any slack. He is the father of the bully that beat up your only son. Because every person could be the one, you always have to be at your best. The stranger kind enough to hold your hair back as you puke could be your future wife. How could you live life like this, as a romantic? This is why I believe there doesn't exist a single woman in the world right for me. It makes my lonely life easier to justify.

"And that's why flames in space are spherical, or round." Martha Livingstone, Ph.D. explained as Captain James Stanley, USN blew out the flame. Maj. Chris Dathwaite, USAF tried to hold the camera steady in the three-dimensional freedom of weightlessness.
"Thank you, Freedom, for that excellent presentation on how life is up there," came the voice of a NASA television personality. "Now, Captain, you just got a few new visitors, right?"
James, who just seconds ago had been unwittingly competing for what oxygen we humans had been able to carry higher than it rightfully should have been, responded, "Exactly. Since Atlantis docked 2 days ago, the shuttle astronauts have been--"
"Like Martha?"
"Yes, Houston, shuttle astronauts, like Martha, or Chris behind the camera, or Jake floating off-screen to my right, have been extremely helpful in constructing our space station and conducting our experiments."
"It must have been humorous when your co-host came to shake your hand. When she arrived, you said, 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume'," the perpetual cheer over-inflected her question. She was, undoubtedly, one of those employees of the space consortium without an uttered promise for even a chance of a spaceshot; for her, NASA was not a path to the stars but a road to a paycheck. So she over-inflected in an attempt to hold the interest of the schoolchildren, present and future, who would sit through this thinly-veiled attempt at education.
"You needn't make unnecessary presumptions," James said tonelessly, "You can just ask if you want to know the answer."
"I mean, I meant," the voice was flustered at this refusal of banter, "did you actually say, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" when you met her?"
"No, why would I do that?"
"Well, cause you're Stanley, and she's Livingstone, and there was this case where, well, umm, Stanley rescued Livingstone, and that's what he said when they met."
"Well, space is not only a new frontier, but a different one. It seems like if I hold on to the cliches of old ones, I may be doing a disservice to both."
"Yes," the voice paused, no doubt trying to interpret frantic hand gestures from her producer, "well, thank you for being with us, Doctor and Captain. For Houston and Mission, I'm--"
"Besides," James interjected quickly enough that any perceived rudeness could be blamed on the several seconds the audio would take in its roundtrip between orbiter and orbited, "with all the supplies Atlantis just brought us, it seems in this case Livingstone is the rescuer."

"You didn't have to be so mean to her," Martha said as soon as the red light went out.
"I wasn't mean. I was explicating," Capt. Stanley said, "wasn't it supposed to be an educational show?"
"You two bicker like a married couple," Chris said, jumping in as he coiled the cord around the now-dormant camcorder.
"She was just trying to be amusing, and admittedly failing, like all DJ's and hosts do. It's just her job."
"Well, if her job description includes incompetence, I guess maybe I was a bit hard on her," Stanley said. He turned back the the rows and panels of buttons, switches and displays that commanded their home-above-our-home.
"I take it back," Chris said, "you argue more like a divorced couple."

As they spoke, they were gliding over the land beneath them, 5 miles every second. Tanks of oxygen and hydrogen stirred, cooled to scant degrees away from theoretical stasis, waiting to form water and generate electricity. Already-formed water waited to be converted by the sun's rays back into oxygen the astronauts could breath. Electrical signals pulsed from component to component over wire, fiber, and spacial ether to control the most imaginative beachhead humanity had realized. Chemicals with names unspellable were burning at a slow rate, waiting to be called upon to propel organisms of simple hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen where their vision will guide them and their ingenuity carry. Inches separated these men and women from the abhorrent vacuum surrounding their tenuous habitat that perpetually fell but, in a Newtonian twist, never landed. All in all, it was a normal day for the international space station Freedom and the space shuttle Atlantis. At least, if anything went wrong, they had each other, which is more than most people can say.