Showing posts with label Strange Stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Strange Stories. Show all posts

27.1.11

The Big Idea

What's the Big Idea?!That's 5,6,7,8... too many times I tried to complete this paragraph about curvature and hyperbolic geometry only to have it get wiped out each time I Saved it or Posted it!

Tell You What...You can keep Your Low-Rank-O's Dumdressands and BoppingCrosses, have Your self-appointed and self-annointed MonkeyNutBrains MDsense sit ize their own kith and kin and themselves too while they're at it.

I don't particularly have any trouble distinguishing when I am on the Flat or in the Saddle and if they do---then, good, that's Exactly how it was Designed to Work.

Now quit messing with my Duckie post and wiping out the curvature paragraph pertaining to hyperbolic geometry on the Cosmic Scale...because that's how big the Truth can Get...BeYOnd Hyperbole!QQQ

Go Desensitize This Symptoms of chemical burns depend on the causing agent. However, most of them are characterized by a superficial or profound destruction of the tissue and a sensation of intense heat or pain. Some tissues are more vulnerable than others -- for example, even mildly corrosive substances can cause damage to one's eyes while not causing anything but discomfort on the hands.
If the injury occurs internally, it can also be associated with poisoning, which renders these type of burns more difficult to treat.


And by All Accounts others complaining of much milder symptoms due to the exposure were relocated. But, they all kept me returning to the same location--blithely explaining away any abnormal sign and symptom to me as a 'false positive' or 'false negative,' (All the while thinking, 'We've seen this sort of thing before; we convince our medical specimen it is all in her head and to make amends, somewhere down the line, someone will volunteer to have a pity-party for her (aka marry her) and take care of her because they can never own the mess they've made of Her life or make reparations any other way without letting the proverbial cat out of the bag; like by allowing this kind of criminal activity to actually be adjudicated in a court of law. As if! Never once stopping to think they picked the wrong specimen, believing there were no other 'witnesses,' since they could not see Him. The old we can't see Him, therefore, He must not Exist! Or, that a simple websearch doesn't turn up that this sort of thing has gone down Just As Viciously in the past (similar case in Louisiana 1996)? Yeah, it may have started out as an accident but that 'coctail' they injected her with at Harbor UCLA was malicious and planned--Ugh!)




...and everybody else ... pretended I was the only one complaining of some 'fictitious' sic-building-syndrome... (Science Hertz, but the Grammar Nazi is not supposed to make out worse than Hilter and PolPot combined...Right: Bizarro Comics January 4, 2011)...that's why I don't subscribe to their Morality (Do Unto others until you're done with them) or Your Physics (For every action there is an Equal and Opposite Reaction; in other words, Good deeds yield Bad results).

...That's why I don't want to be a Rock Star or a Wonder Tsar--Reinventing Physics Is Where I R.

If any of this is making me sound like my great grandmother 7 generations back, giving a shout out across the space-time continuum might have attenuated the message, only adding to the confusion.

If there was any French in Her, what She said was, 'Fou toi!' (sounds like fu.twa!)

Non Sequitur August 24, 2012
'The Laws of Physics Shall Be Strictly Enforced'
Not to be mistaken for the similar sounding Advisory Opinion, 'Fatweh!' issued by My Late Father's great grandfather 7 generations back--that would make Him Jed-Jed-Jedi--and what He said was, 'فتوى!'
At any rate, it's a moot point whether He said, 'This is my opinion!' or, She said, 'You crazy!'
Because in the Final Analysis according to forget me, aka منسي sounds like 'mansee', it's "Like saying Peace be upon you!"
('zaii call it salaamu 3alykum!' )
زي قوله سلام عليكم

'A fashionable way to say ;-Peace Be Upon You'!'

31.3.10

A Bunny, A Ba, And The Boy Next Door



The Book of Bunny Suicides: Little Fluffy White Rabbits That Just Don’t Want To Live Any More, by Andy Riley (2003), is an excellent example of dark humor that strikes just the right combination of pathos and innovation. Although there exists both written and oral records in history suggesting that suicide has been in man’s behavior repertoire from primitive times on, the word ‘suicide’ did not exist until the seventeenth century; instead the phenomenon went by more descriptive appellations reflected in Latin phrases, such as vim sibi inferre (to cause violence to oneself), sibi mortem consciscere (to procure one's own death), and sua manu cadere (to fall by one's own hand) and in Early English phrases such as self-murder, self-destruction, and self-killer—all phrases emphasizing suicide’s association with the act of murder.



According to Suicide Basics:


Near the end of the nineteenth century, Émile Durkheim's Suicide (1897) established the field of sociology by offering the first comprehensive theory of suicide. Durkheim's theory postulated that two basic social forces exist and interact within any society—regulation and integration. Societies that were chaotic and confused produced "anomic" suicides; societies characterized by excessive constraints were likely to develop "fatalistic" suicides; societies in which the individual felt alienated and separate would have "egoistic" suicides; and in societies in which there was overidentification with the values or causes of a person's group, the suicides would be "altruistic." Durkheim's theory stimulated a continuing array of sociological statistical investigations. It has been modified in innumerable ways, none of which seriously challenged his basic underlying theory. In both the Old and New Testaments suicide is mentioned in a forthright manner, neither condemning nor condoning the act of suicide, if one were to go by the relevant passages: Samson brought the temple of the Philistines down upon himself in order to kill his captors (Judg. 16:28–31); Saul, facing capture, disgrace, and torture in a defeat by the Philistines, fell on his own sword (1 Sam, 31:1–6); and Abimelech, not wanting the disgrace of being killed by a woman, killed himself (Judg. 9:54); Ahitophel chose to hang himself after he supported Absolam's unsuccessful revolt against King David (2 Samuel 17:23); Judas Iscariot simply "went and hanged himself" (Colt, 1991 p.153). Islam condemns suicide with great severity, calling suicide a rejection of the Divine Will, which is expressed in many different ways and to which humans must submit themselves at all times. {It's only politeness that makes this last statement sound like anybody has any real say in the matter since willingly or unwillingly, sooner or later, they all come to realize it is God's Will}. {Since the main underlying causes behind suicide have been effectively identified as far back as 1897 and they all appear to be readily manageable, there appears to be no reason for suicide (of any kind) to be prevalent in today's societies, yet it continues to plague them; or did I just forget what planet I am on?} In an attempt to prevent suicidal passengers from leaping onto train tracks, the East Japan Railway Company installed a large, stainless steel mirror in one of its Tokyo subway stations. The purpose of this innovative method of prevention is to make people see their reflection in the mirror and think twice about their suicidal behavior.






While Mirrors are a modern attempt to make those bent on suicide reflect deeply before proceeding, the Ancients were known to try Persuasive Poetry as a deterrent. Ba is the Ancient Egyptian word for Soul, and a relatively well-known ancient poem by an unnamed writer known only as 'The Eloquent Peasant' is said to have been commissioned by King Meri-ka-re to write a poem in order to dissuade people from committing suicide. The manuscript The Dispute Between a Man and His Ba, dated between 2000 and 1740 BC , appeared on papyrus in hieroglyphics (a sample of which is shown here) and it relates a conflict between a Man, who wants to commit suicide to escape a society that had fallen to ruin, and his Ba because his soul threatened to leave him should he commit suicide. His Ba informs him that to die without any hope of Resurrection and to be consigned to a life in pergatory would be worse than the most unbearable living conditions, and the man finally convinces his Ba not to leave him.



You might be wondering 'What does she mean by this suicide mish-MASH?'--well, Steve, it was only a matter of time before I got around to you.



M.A.S.H. was a popular tv series in the 70's and the lyrics to the M.A.S.H. theme song, Suicide is Painless (Mash Theme Song) by Mike Altman and Johnny Mandel go something like this:






Through early morning fog I see Visions of the things to be The pains that are withheld for me, I realize and I can see... (chorus) That suicide is painless, It brings on many changes And I can take or leave it if I please... And you can do the same thing if you please.

August 2, 1981 (July 29, 1981?) was heralded around the globe as the day of the 'Fairy Tale Wedding' between Lady Diana and the Prince of Wales. And while all the televisions were tuned in to watch the spectacle and the pageantry of the Princess that finally (as it turned out many years later almost) got her Prince and watch the Parade, the Carriage Ride and gaze in wonder upon the Bridal Dress and feel priviledged to see the Church Ceremony; somewhere in a little hamlet across 'the pond' in New York City, a quiet middle class neighborhood was roused from slumber by the wails of a little boy bemoaning the loss of his Big Brother.

Not nearly as rare a spectacle as the Royal Wedding since little boys often lose their Big Brothers, but the day Steve was discovered having committed suicide the entire neighborhood block woke up dead that morning.


Surah 16 Nahl (Bees)
أَمْواتٌ غَيْرُ أَحْيَاء وَمَا يَشْعُرُونَ أَيَّانَ يُبْعَثُونَ 16:21
16:21 (created beings) They are Dead, not Living, and they sense not when they will be Raised.

Painless? Perhaps barely a footnote in the annals of History unless you get clued in to the background story, maybe true-- maybe a fairy tale, or perhaps life on another planet.

Because, you see, on the planet Earth the story of the girl and the Boy Next Door typically goes something like this:

He is erudite and handsome and worldly and she is a little shy, pretty and urbane. They walk home from school together as children, and share their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and inside jokes about the other kids. One day they grow up and realize they are so close knit they seem to be opposite sides of the same cloth and they seal the deal with a little garden wedding of their own and live happily ever after.

Screeech---here is the same story about the Boy Next Door in the alternate Universe where I am from:

Yes, he is handsome and fully aware of his beckoning good looks, but nothing about him conveys that he has every right to be conceited; not his deliberate leisurely gait, his always crisp and clean yet understated attire or his quiet tone of voice when speaking to his mother. He keeps to himself and is rarely seen hanging around the neighborhood since he is a young man at the first light of manhood, about 20 years of age or so; he always has some place to go, exciting people to see, something worthwhile to do. He is the first born son to an elegant English woman and a connected Italian-American man.

The girl next door is barely coping with her teenage angst, she is under some sort of informal house arrest because her father woke up one morning in a cold sweat having dreamt that a man had kidnapped her--his younger daughter. Why that would be a problem is beyond her since she has 5 other siblings and she is only a middle child; but she keeps busy by cracking jokes with her mother at the kitchen table, watching back-to-back Star Trek episodes and keeping her nose in a book, since her siblings relentlessly taunt her about her awkward looks. She gets the biggest room in the converted attic which happens to have the best greenbelt view of all the rooms and looks out onto the main street.

On the eve of August 2, 1981 she is having trouble falling asleep and while she is typically an even-tempered, even mellow, and emotionally a generally happy kind of girl, she is flooded with sadness. Tears well up in her eyes and she can't figure out why, nothing in the day could have triggered it. Her days were all pretty much the same: wake up, go to school, study really hard, cheer on the home team, practice with the other majorettes, or take in a few laps with the track team and then the usual routine at home (see above). She's tired and wants to sleep but she moves to the window and looks out. She finds herself standing there, looking, looking, looking for what?--everyone is asleep.

Nothing is moving in the street, the stultifying summer air doesn't even rustle the leaves. It's nearly 2 am and she is agitated, anxious, confused and most of all sad. Then she sees his car inching around the corner and realizes why--it's Steve, the Boy Next Door and he is coming home for the night. His car is moving at a very slow rate, turning the corner for home with the same lassitude as someone moving through the bog; it must have taken Steve an agonizing number of minutes just to round that corner for home and his was the house on the corner.

She sees him pull into his garage and when he gets out, he's all just shadow and he quietly goes into his house. She is having trouble breathing and the blood runs cold in her veins and her head hurts, she thinks she should ease up on the soda pop; but nothing breaks her vigil. She waits.

He is a quiet man from a quiet family, she knows she can't hear anything inside the house; but she sees (her house is two doors down and her line of sight is blocked by a neighbor's house--so how is it possible she thinks she sees what's going on in their home?). 
His father is there, Steve is upset but he doesn't disrespect him; somehow she knows it's not about curfew at his age. She hovers. Steve is despondent; tonight Steve broke up with his girlfriend not because he didn't love her but because tonight Steve was being 'invited' into the family business. She wants to get out of the house and do something but doesn't know what to do (imagine her banging down some mafioso's door during the wee hours of the morning)--everybody will think she is crazy!

Once the father and son thing is over, his father retires to bed and Steve lingers in the living room. He waits--she thinks, an hour maybe 2, she is still up. 
She didn't know Steve liked Chemistry. He takes a chemistry textbook with him and goes and sits in his car. 
He reads. She thinks she is overreacting and lies back down in bed but still no sleep. She has a waking dream that she is floating above the city and she is very sad and knows now why she is crying--Steve would rather die than join the family business. 
Sometime between 4 am and 6 am, Steve decided to close all the doors to the garage and stay in the car and set the engine to run idle while he quietly leafed through a chemistry textbook; a final consideration to allow his mother the sliver of a thought that it may have been an accident (he didn't leave a note...maybe he just fell asleep while reading in the car?)

وَيَوْمَ نَبْعَثُ مِن كُلِّ أُمَّةٍ شَهِيدًا ثُمَّ لاَ يُؤْذَنُ لِلَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ وَلاَ هُمْ يُسْتَعْتَبُونَ 16:84
16:84 And one day We Shall Raise from every Community/People/Nation a Witness/Martyr** and then the disbelievers will have no leave, nor will they be able to make amends.


 وَيَوْمَ نَبْعَثُ فِي كُلِّ أُمَّةٍ شَهِيدًا عَلَيْهِم مِّنْ أَنفُسِهِمْ وَجِئْنَا بِكَ شَهِيدًا عَلَى هَـؤُلاء
وَنَزَّلْنَا عَلَيْكَ الْكِتَابَ تِبْيَانًا لِّكُلِّ شَيْءٍ وَهُدًى وَرَحْمَةً وَبُشْرَى لِلْمُسْلِمِينَ 16:8
16:89 And one day We Shall Raise from every Community/People/Nation a Witness/Martyr** from their midst (among them) and We will make you witness over them (the Witnesses); and We Revealed the Scripture to you Expounding (Making Clear) every matter and a Guidance and a Mercy and a Blessing (Glad Tiding) to the Believers (Faithful).

Which part of my life is worth repeating? Maybe the part where we get to find out who bears the brunt of the bigger joke, me or Michael (pbuh)?

Because, You See, Michael, that 'man' that my father thought absconded with me in his dream way back in the 80's, he had described him to me and the rest of our family when he woke up that morning. I will not give up the details of your physical description (my dad took them to his grave and I am pretty sure i did too), but he basically looked just like the Michael who insisted we have lunch together in 1992--that's why I refused vehemently, but since it was Imperitive--what else could I do? (I suppose if one must be kidnapped what better Guardian/Kidnapper than Michael) 

The same Michael that ordered way too much food for two people and proceeded not to eat any of it, because He had been Asked to give me some News. You never spelled out exactly what it was, only that it wasn't Good--I wondered whether the entire charade was just a play for Time and that you were sullen for no other reason than that you just don't eat.

So, will You be the One to tell me the Joke is on me, or do I get to have the last laugh? (I couldn't make this stuff up even if I tried).

**It appears that a noncontrovertible prerequisite to holding this office (of Witness/Martyr) is to Never have anyone's blood on your hands (anything to the contrary and know that someone is lying to you sister/brother)

26.3.10

Mad, Glad, And Sad

How often does the word 'bipolar' appear in syndicated crossword puzzles? (NY Times 25.03.2010)

المص 7:1
كهيعص 19:1
ص وَالْقُرْآنِ ذِي الذِّكْرِ 38:1

7:1 Alef.Lam.Mim.Saad
19:1 Kaf.Ha.Ya. 'Ayn.Saad
38:1 Saad. By This Recitation Worthy of Remembrance...


قُلْ مَن كَانَ عَدُوًّا لِّجِبْرِيلَ
فَإِنَّهُ نَزَّلَهُ عَلَى قَلْبِكَ بِإِذْنِ اللّهِ مُصَدِّقاً
لِّمَا بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ وَهُدًى وَبُشْرَى لِلْمُؤْمِنِينَ 2:97
2:97 Say: "Who can be an Enemy to Gabriel? He Imparted It to your Heart by God's Authorization; Certifying what is 'between their hands' (prior Revelation); a Guidance and Glad Tiding to the Believers."
مَن كَانَ عَدُوًّا لِّلّهِ وَمَلآئِكَتِهِ وَرُسُلِهِ وَجِبْرِيلَ
وَمِيكَالَ فَإِنَّ اللّهَ عَدُوٌّ لِّلْكَافِرِينَ 2:98
2:98 Whoever is an Enemy to God and His Angels and His Messengers
and Gabriel and Michael, (know) that God is an Enemy to (Does Not Support/Is Against) the Unbelievers.

مَا ضَلَّ صَاحِبُكُمْ وَمَا غَوَى 53:2
53:2 Your Companion is Neither Crazy Nor Deluded
وَمَا يَنطِقُ عَنِ الْهَوَى 53:3
53:3 And Does Not Speak Of his Own Accord
53:4 نْ هُوَ إِلَّا وَحْيٌ يُوحَى
53:4 He is Revealing What is Revealed
عَلَّمَهُ شَدِيدُ الْقُوَى 53:5
53:5 Someone Mightier Has Taught him


{-Do you Remember when we all landed in the psych ward and all we could think to do was send out for pizza?
-Yes, but I still don't know how You got the broken D# key to play through Fur Elise or how on Earth you managed to check into a secure ward with a lit cigarette in your hand without anyone asking you to put it out--I should have held on to the number you gave me, but I wouldn't have known what to say.}

1.4.09

1962 ARGENTINA FLAP - "OVNI COMING IN FOR A LANDING!"

The following account may appear to be just another unsolved UFO story but to those following this blog's content closely we know it calls for practical application of phunny physics and mystical math.

Source: La Razon (newspaper); Joseph Trainor produced the following bulletin for UFO ROUNDUP

In August 1962, the newspaper La Razon of Buenos Aires ran an astounding story. An OVNI (Spanish acronym for UFO) had landed at the airfield in Camba Punat, in the province of Corrientes.

According to La Razon, airport manager Luis Harvey was warned by his radar operators that an unannounced airplane was about to land. Running out on the runway, Harvey saw "a luminous object" circling the runway at high speed. Suddenly, the object came down and hovered four feet off the asphalt. Harvey and a dozen other witnesses described it as "a completely spherical body that hovered, spinning on its axis, a few feet above the runway." All the while, the UFO
emitted blinding green, orange and blue lights."

As Harvey and his crew approached the UFO, it soared upward and "vanished at staggering speed."

This, however, was only a warm-up to the big event...

On December 20, 1962, at approximately 2:15 a.m., radar operator Jose Besutti was staring at his scope in the Flight Control Tower at Ezeiza International Airport, just west of Buenos Aires. Suddenly, he saw an unidentified blip and contacted airport manager Horacio Alora. As the tower crew watched, the UFO landed right smack dab on Ezeiza's main runway.


Grabbing a pair of binoculars, Alora spotted a silvery disc-shaped UFO sitting on the runway 2,000 meters (600 yards) from the tower. An "hombrecito" (little man) climbed out and walked around on the asphalt as if it were a road. The UFO had flashing red and white lights.


Just then, the tower radio squawked, "This is Pan-Am 609 Heavy, nonstop jet service from Rio de Janeiro, coming in on final approach."

"Madre de Dios!" Alora shouted, "Tell him not to land."

As one operator raced to the radio, the tower crew heard another transmission from the four-engined Pan American DC-8. "Ezeiza Tower, this is PanAm 609 Heavy. Just passing the outer marker."

Grabbing the microphone himself, Alora shouted, "PanAm, go around! Repeat, go around! Do not attempt to land."

"Passing the inner marker," the pilot said, "Jesus H. Christ! Who left that truck on the runway!?"

"That's no truck!" Alora shouted, "It's a flying saucer!"

Besutti and the others opened the tower windows and began yelling at the UFO occupant (or the clueless truck driver, emphasis mine). "Get out of there! Hurry!"

The occupant simply stood there. Just then, the big jetliner dropped out of the overcast, lights on and engines whining--startled by the sight of the DC-8 descending toward him, the occupant dashed back to the UFO. A hatch popped open in the bottom hemisphere, and he dove through it.

Suddenly, the UFO began glowing. As the DC-8 touched down, it rose to a height of 600 meters (1,980 feet) and then zoomed eastward toward Uruguay "at a vertiginous (dizzying) speed." Five seconds later, the DC-8 on its rollout rushed right over the spot where the UFO occupant had been standing.

Here it is in pictures:



Here it is in other words:

About 2 am on December 20 1962, Fred has a brain (brane) fart and decides to get out of his light duty vehicle and check his engine right in the middle of runway 11-29. There is a DC-8 approaching with so many souls on board and no way to convince the tower crew that they have all fallen asleep and are all having the same bad dream, so it came to pass that a window into another dimension opened up to allow Fred time to clear the runway before his poor judgement ruins Christmas for everyone involved.

For homework: Determine the true location of this alternate dimension and actual "vertiginous" land speed Fred was able to "fly" east toward Uruguay.

16.11.07

Blue Ball Orange Ball

I searched my correspondence file and found this from Alan Bennett (http://www.solargeometry.com/). I think the blue ball at the gas station has generated enough excitement that this information seems timely.

I copied this so as not to have to rewrite it.

***************************************************************

I am writing from Port Aransas, Texas. PA is at the mouth of the Corpus Christi Ship Channel and the Gulf Intracoastal waterway. These days I am the concessions manager on a 70 ft. catamaran fishing boat. We take tourists fishing to 40 plus miles offshore.

Since you asked, I will tell you about what I now call " Orange Ball Day ".

On or about November 20, 1975, I was captain on an 80 ft. crew boat, " The Wilderness ", working out of Port O'Connor, Texas. About 10:30 PM we were returning from a run out to Mallard 33, a shallowwater jack up rig about 3 miles offshore and 20 miles on the Galveston side of the Matagorda Ship Channel, the entry point from the Gulf into Port O'Connor.

It had been an uneventful trip with minimal winds and seas. We were gliding along at 22 knots and I was simply watching to make sure we weren't going to collide with anything.

My engineer was asleep in a cot behind the helm and my deckhand asleep in his cot below in the galley.

I happened to look to my starboard. Already there right out my starboard window was a dimly glowing orange sphere about fifteen times the diameter of the full moon. It pulsated in brightening and dimming in an irregular pulsation. Its appearance was as though you had reached into a barbeque pit at night with a pair of tongs and brought out a briquet and watched the color changes that occured as the air blew over it. And it was cruising alongside of us at our speed.

I can assure you I had never in my life seen anything like that. I decided that the way to make sure I was not hallucinating was to wake my engineer, so I turned around and reached over and shook him: " Hey, Moose... look at this!! "

As soon as he opened his eyes he was looking at it... and he came flying up out of a dead sleep and stood there looking at it, and I had my answer... it was really out there.

Both of us remained silent for the next few minutes. It was me who spoke first, even as we both continued to watch this sphere. " I'm going to throw my light on it and see what happens".

I set the Azimuth on the my spotlight and swung it around sideways so that when I turned the spot on it would illuminate the sphere. My intent was to flip the light on-off-on-off a few times
as if to say " We see you. Now what? "

I flipped on the switch...the spotlight ray went right to the sphere and it simultaneuously, and instantaneously, vanished right before our eyes. This is something maybe 100 feet across.

I grabbed the throttles and stopped the boat dead in the water. We both went outside and scanned the night sky but the object was gone and it did not return. ( Visually, at least ).

Not caring to bore you with further details, I will point out that mathematics and geometry started issuing from my brain a few days later. I took the view then as I do now that this encounter had something to do with that, so I began a long process of trial and error which resulted in the things you have seen on this site.

I invite you, xxxxx, to take your time and review the elucidations planet by planet. I now know they were considered enlightenment itself in several cultures. I personally especially like the
drawing " Mercury, Venus, Earth, the Tai Chi and the Decimal System. " The positions along the NS axis representing the Sun, Mercury, Venus and the Earth are faithfully to correct scale and the distances between each pair are different along that line.

Sun-Mercury distance= 1.0000000000
Mercury-Venus distance= .866025404
Venus-Earth distance=.7172803076

But look what happens when you swing them with a compass to the circumference of a circle with a radius of (orbital distance Venus) to the .75 power. They form seven of the decimal divisions of that circle, taking up equal divisions along the circumference.

If this Earth follows a cosmic star law (and it does) and if it is infinite in number because of this (and it is) then you and I have been here forever and will be, forever. And this is enlightenment.

Thank you again. I look forward to hearing from you again.


My best to you,
Alan Bennett
a 65 year old sailor at Port Aransas, Texas

26.5.06

Journal Entry for May 14, 1997 at 17:00

Classified:


Top Secret


“We are One!” a voice sounded in her right ear as she drew to a stop at the intersection of Bundy and Santa Monica. “We are taking our anti-smoking campaign overseas,” the voices from the unidentified source continued.

Momentarily, her daughter piped in, “Mommy, that man’s smoke is bothering me.” She frowned for emphasis forcing her Mother to take action. Her Mom reached over to the passenger side of their vehicle and rolled up the window on her daughter’s side.

“Mommy, why does that man look funny?” her daughter added, as Mom pulled herself back up behind the steering wheel. This prompted Mom to look past her daughter to the car with the smoker next to them and carefully assess the driver. The man in the vehicle--a silver Land Rover--rolled forward slowly to bring his driver’s window directly into her line of sight. She could discern from his profile that he was not a normal variant of anyone she would consider a contemporary human.His head was noticeably larger and appeared to be nearly spherical. It was draped with very fine blonde hair--nearly colorless--in a Dutch boy haircut that hung limply in the air between the bottom of the back of his head and his shoulders. His facial features, from what she could see, were very flat, with an imperial chin and small, fine-shaped nose. She sensed he allowed her to peruse him deliberately and when he felt she had taken him in in some detail, he slowly turned from profile to face her.

She was initially taken aback at seeing his face; it was not ugly, in fact its features were perfectly symmetric and perfectly formed, however, it was very strange. Her surprise registered on her face. Reading her confusion, his thin lips traced a quizzical smile, and he leisurely dangled his left arm out of his window and with his thumb flicked the butt of his lit cigarette to let some ashes fly.

Her gaze followed the flow of his black clad arm, with his opaque white hand holding the cigarette. There seemed to be one heart beat between them, then he shook his wrist forcing a watch to peek out from under his long sleeve. He continued to nonchalantly dangle his cigarette out the window while studying her, his fingers perfectly long, thin, regular and manicured. While she could not read the brand on his watch, she understood it to be the very finest in time keeping machinations and she was given to understand that she was late for something. He took advantage of the opportunity that time allowed for her to assimilate all of this information about him by quickly moving into the vacated space in front of her vehicle. The traffic light had briefly turned from red to green and back again, allowing only the one vehicle in front of her through the intersection. He moved so quickly that she did not have time to react and to move her vehicle forward. She did not miss out on the fact that the timing of the traffic signal was irregular.

“Now step out of the car and let her take a good look at you,” a young male authoritative voice commanded. While she clearly heard this directive, her daughter was oblivious to it.

To her amazement, the driver-side door to the man’s vehicle slowly opened, reinforcing the impression that the voice(s) she heard were in fact a real presence, yet somehow not everyone in her surroundings could hear them.

“Mommy, what is he doing?”

She only responded by extending her right arm across her daughter's body to keep her from freeing herself of her seatbelt. She continued to watch carefully, as she was given to understand this particular show was happening just for her benefit.

The man extended a very long, very thin, black clad left leg and well shod foot to the ground. Once his foot landed and he tested his footing, he slowly drew his entire body out of the vehicle and remained standing in place, with his back to her, certainly allowing her the chance to take a very good, long, hard look at him.

He was very tall, his erect frame exceeding the height of his vehicle. His legs were spindly and clad in a tight black fabric that enveloped his lanky legs without revealing his musculature. His slacks were beltless and rested snugly without binding on his thin, masculine frame. He had a very small buttocks almost to the point of being non existent. His hips were narrow. The opaque, semi-glossy fabric of his black shirt draped fluidly around his broad shoulders and long arms and was tucked smoothly into his pants. His bulbous head was balanced on a reed-thin long neck. This last detail bothered her most about his appearance since she surmised his neck was about one-fifth the diameter of an average human neck. Overall, she concluded that he was aesthetically pleasing to the eye despite his unusual appearance.



He slowly turned on his heel to face her and stood motionlessly staring at her. She knew to greet him with the obligatory “Peace!” and she did her best to project telepathically to him, however, he seemed non-responsive. He began to walk toward her and while she strained to hear any kind of communication from him or those intrusive voices—all was silent.

She noticed his gate was unusual; he moved like a puppet on a string--almost as if he wasn’t aclimated to the gravity on Earth. As he approach she sensed her daughter's heightened state of anxiety, so she did what any mother would do—she deftly flipped him the bird. She felt this defiant gesture would at least demonstrate to her daughter that she wasn’t afraid and so neither should she be. That same quizzical smile flitted across his lips, so quickly she wasn’t sure it happened at all. He continued to methodically plod his way to the rear of his vehicle, turning his back to her once he reached the tailgate. He gingerly opened it up and she considered for a moment pinning him between the vehicles by rolling up slowly on him, but she was not sadistic. Had she not been miffed at this display in front of her child, she would have laughed at the sight of his thin limbs flying around in search of something in the back of his SUV, when finally he straightened and turned to face her, this time holding two small bottles of Evian water in one of his hands. He raised them slightly to her eye level, went back into his vehicle and drove forward through the intersection. The timing of the light was such that once his door closed, it turned green.

‘Great, they’ll be poisoning the water next,’ she thought to herself. She wondered why no one else seemed to notice the extra-ordinary length of time for the traffic signal to change. No-one honked or even seemed remotely interested in what she and her daughter had witnessed. She drove west behind him for several city blocks until she had to turn north to the service station, and he continued westbound. His vehicle did not have a license plate. She would have liked to chase him down, but she felt constrained by the presence of her child in the car and the need to get to her son before the nursery school closed.

While she didn't appreciate the mystery, the encounter gave her something to focus on outside the chronic pain in her body, and the migraine in her head; 'Who are 'We' that are 'One' and what do I care about any anti-smoking campaign?'
From Maxie Time, by Raida Abachi