Writer's Debate

This is a writer's debate. Four rounds of a maximum of 8k characters with 72hrs to post your next round. Arguments for who best contributes to the story, who develops the characters and plot line, etc. A dropped round is an automatic loss. Opponent is expected to post his/her contribution in the first round. Please post in the comments if you would like to accept. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To the edge, my love. To the edge. I read an inscription at the base of a marble statue in front of the national museum of science. It was a symbolic representation of man"s reaching toward the limit of his capacity for knowledge, for the love of doing so. It confused my classmate as we discussed it before our trip, but upon seeing the amorphous shape halfway tilted over a steep precipice concluded that the artist intended to convey a finite limit of human understanding. It is my theory that all truly modern art is grotesquely confusing, and that if whatever masterpiece one may gaze upon is not confusing, the observer is na"ve or the piece is nonsense. I make no room for abstraction. It was the sciences I prized, and for which I felt shame that such a preposterous display of artistic ostentation should occupy the nine square meters it greedily held before the great doors of the beloved museum. I had won a scholarship to university, which upon attending I anticipated majoring in physics and chemical engineering. Perhaps in my future laid a career in academia, or perhaps for a metal company. Either would be satisfactory. With contempt I walked past the statue. "Christian, it is hardly necessary to scoff with such vitriol at the mere art. Better you reprieve your scathing condemnation for the pre-Darwinians or flat-earthing neanderthals who challenge the validity of carbon dating." Kenneth joked. "There is quite enough scathing and condemnation to go around, and I should hardly be disinclined to pass over the opportunity to scoff at nonsense." I replied. "Careful, lest you begin to assume the presence of Bertrand Russell." Kenneth continued in jest. "I may be deranged, but at least I"m brilliant." I tried not to smile. The museum was arranged in a predictable way, placing discoveries in order of chronological advancement beginning with the wheel and ending with a display on string theory. It was quite pleasurable, although I noticed that I seemed to be the only one interested. "I remember when I was at the Louvre last summer with my family after we returned from our vacation in southern France." Deirdre Hammond boasted. "It was far over and above more interesting then this... tragedy of human innovation." I walked over to where she was standing. "Tragedy?" I was even more frustrated by her dismissiveness then of her ignorance. "By what method do you conclude the scientific development of mankind throughout his fruited history to be a tragedy?" "Oh, Christian! Don"t be such a blowhard. Science and technology are marvelous, but they are mere products to be sold. There is no art to whatever this is." She pointed at the string theory exhibit. "This hardly compares to being face to face with the Mona Lisa." "Indeed." I saw no point in arguing further. Kenneth and I walked out into the gift shop where he bought a toy chemistry set for his younger brother and a book on the science of bar tending for his mother. He turned to face me as he held the items high. "They"ll like these." He smiled, and proceeded to check out. My only gift was to myself was that I briefly enjoyed a taste of what it meant to finally break free of that most oppressive intellectual penitentiary that was the under equipped lab I was hence-fourth taught in. But today was something greater than the present. Today, I was beckoned to take my place among the giants whose discoveries were exhibited at the museum.