From: mdw@theory.TC.Cornell.EDU (Matt Welsh)
Subject: Paradigm Of Fish: Part 1
Summary: An inquiry into values, the human psyche, and salad toppings.
Organization: Cornell Theory Center
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 05:49:46 GMT

Here's the first installment in my new sitcom, The Paradigm of Fish.
As always I appreciate comments, suggestions, or inspiration. 


The Paradigm of Fish. Part 1. "THC Fetishism and You."

	The plains of southwestern Burma were teeming with life, from the
microscopic to the macroscopic, from animal to vegetable, prokaryotic to
eukaryotic. Insects devoured the infinitesimal blood lice that fed upon their
rigid thoraces, working in symbiotic relationship with the larger birds that
swept relentlessly from the dank grey skies to snatch them up in one last
retractile scream of insecthood in their beaks. Lions sacked unwary gazelles
over the ridge of the hill, whereupon I sat beneath a gum tree, contemplating,
being at once oblivious and totally aware of my surroundings: this violent
environment, in which manhood was but a glimmer in the face of the food chain,
upon which I was effectively the next link. Determined of this, I hurled a
fragmentation grenade into the nearest pack of she-lions and waited for the
smoke to clear before I headed in with my nylon sack and my Swiss Army knife
to claim my carrion. The lions never learn, I thought to myself, and on my
way back up the hill I carved another lion pictogram into the gum tree, a
scorecard of my Saturday afternoon killings that extended for three unbroken
revolutions around the trunk. 
	A light breeze was blowing as I headed back to my Jeep, parked on 
the other side of the knoll, protected from the indigenous wildlife and car
thieves by an elaborate system of motion detectors and automatic weapons that
MacGyver would have killed for. Luckily only a few passing groundhogs had 
been lynched by the antiintrusion system and I tossed them happily in with the
lions into my bloodstained sack. I looked around, took a deep breath of the
aroma of fresh gunpowder and dead groundhog, and disarmed the Jeep's protection
system with a transmitter on my keychain. It was a cold day, and the breeze
was inspiring me to fly the G.I. Joe kite I had brought along to break the
monotony of my five-year solo safari/heavy arms hunting expedition. The sun
was about to set, so instead of idling myself with foolish wind-powered
entertainment I pitched my tent and sleeping bag, started up the Jeep, skinned
one of the groundhogs and gingerly placed the bleeding carcass on the hot
engine block. "Mmmm-mmm!" I thought to myself. "There's nothing like grilled
groundhog after a long day of sitting under a tree and waiting for large game
to happen by."
	As the stars slowly emerged into the inky blackness of the night, I
tried to think of as many other cliches as possible: The moon was pale and
waning, and the distant coyotes howled like diseased swine in the otherwise
silent evening. I pulled out my astrolabe and portable satellite dish and
TV set to catch the tail end of the Dodgers game on TELESTAR 5, which was
luckily so erroneously out of orbit due to a recent meteor collision that I
could pick up the bout from the wrong end of the globe, and exactly eleven
hours before the game was supposed to begin. I remembered with a start that
I was supposed to e-mail Jim a copy of my safari journal for the week that
very night, and went over to the Jeep to grab my PowerBook and MacGerbil 
Power Supply. This new innovation in portable computer power supply technology
was based on the kilojoules of wasted kinetic energy generated by a gerbil
running inside of one of those inane plastic bubbles, continuously bumping
into walls and other gerbils in plastic bubbles, an unpredictable particle 
governed by quantum gerbildynamics.
	I tossed one of my gerbils into the bubble and set him going in a
miniature arena which consisted of a plastic barrier set up in a 10-foot
radius next to the campfire. I hooked up the servos and wired the magnets to
the side of the bubble and soon enough was drawing enough power to pull up
System 7, running the Finder, After Dark, and NCSA Telnet all at once. I had
injected the gerbil with a mixture of adrenalin and STP (the motor oil, not
the psychoactive drug) so he was good for maybe an hour, more than long enough 
to type up my journal entry and send it over to Jim at home, so far away. I 
fumbled in the grass next to the Jeep and finally pulled up the 10-Base T link
I had dragged along behind me during the expedition to plug into the PowerBook.
I typed up the entire journal entry, and as you're reading this pretend it's 
the end of Doogie Houser and the camera is following each letter as it's 
slowly typed without mistakes or a break in rhythm: 
	"Week 237. Not much happened this week. I learned that gazelles are 
generally frightened off by mortar shells detonating nearby. Gotta run, there's
a groundhog on the grill."
	The gerbil was beginning to lose steam, so I shutdown the computer and
put away all the equipment. I decided to get some sleep after finishing my
grilled woodchuck on toast, for I had a long day of aquatic mine fishing coming
up the next morning. 

End of Part 1.

mdw

-- 
Matt Welsh    mdw@tc.cornell.edu        +1 607 253 2737
Systems Programmer, Cornell Theory Center
  "She's like jelly roll, like sculpture!"
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