Black to the Future Friday

The detectives stared at the man in the chair through the two-way mirror. He looked very tired and nervous. A rookie would think he was ready to crack and barrage him with questions until he broke into a river of confessions. The more seasoned officers knew that someone who was in this fragile of a state could just as easily fall to the side of shocked silence or gibbering nonsense as a useful confession. So when they entered the interview room the questioning followed this line:

"Had you ever gone to a Black Friday sale before?"

"No, no, no, no. It always seemed silly to deal with those crowds."

"So why did you decide to go today?"

"I hadn't been able to sleep that night, so when I glanced at the clock and saw it was already 4 am, I figured, why not go and see what all the fuss is about. It might be fun to mingle with the masses." His voice had steadied somewhat though he continued to unconsciously scratch at his neck and scalp.

"Where did you go? What did you buy?"

"I went to Best Buy. They were selling Smallville seasons for $9 dollars each. I hadn't watched it in years and years, so I grabbed them?"

"How Many?"

"Nine seasons."

One of the detectives smirked. "That's a lot of hours of TV. Where are you going to find time to watch all those."

"I get my time from the same place as everyone else gets theirs."

They were finally starting to get somewhere. The detective leaned forward, "And where is that then?"

"From the future."

The detectives looked at each other. There was that name again. It had come up over and over again in this investigation, but no one could tell them much about it. Or whether it was an it or a person or a place. "Well, look, there's a lot of old television shows I would like to have more time to watch, could you tell us where this future is, so we can get some more time?

"That's not how it works, the future will find you. You don't have to go looking for it, you'll just eventually end up there."

"Look, we hear you know a woman who can tell the future. We need to know what kind of things she has been telling it."

I kind of like this story and I'll probably add more to it later, but for now it was just a long walk around the park to get to this punchline.

Falling and Love

She coughed and rubbed her eyes and it seemed to take far to long for the dust to finally settle. When it did, she looked up at the hole she had fallen through and could not believe she had fallen so far. How could she still be alive? The answer began to dawn on her as her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she found herself looking up into an enormous face that could have filled up a billboard. But the face wasn't on a billboard, it was on a head, and the head was on a neck, and the neck was on a body, and the body had arms, and the arms had hands, and one of the hands was holding her up.

She screamed then, not because she felt it was the responsible thing to do at the time; rather, the scream had come naturally to her and no other ideas had presented themselves so the scream was the default response. The huge face winced and the huge hands set her down, and then they covered up the huge ears until her screaming stopped.

The echos of her scream finally faded away, but this took some time as they were in a rounded cavern the size of a football stadium and all the noises seemed to bounce around forever. It all seemed too much to take in, the giant room and the giant thing which looked less like a giant human and more like a giant bear with human proportions and digits. Though he sounded human enough when he said,

"Thank you for stopping."

"Thanks you for not killing me." It seemed like the appropriate thing to say and, like the scream, it had also come naturally.

"Why would I want to kill you? Have you done something to me?"

"No, it just seemed like sort of the thing a monster would do to a little girl."

"Oh, I didn't know you were a little girl." He thought for a moment before continuing, "I didn't know I was a monster." And because he had heard of little girls and that they were often silly things he was sceptical of her claim. "How do you know I'm a monster?"

"You look a little like the monsters in my books."

He knew about books. He had heard the birds talking about books. People used to try to catch the birds and eat them, but now they just waited around and watched them and tried to find them in their books.

"And these monsters, they kill little girls?"

"Yes, they kill everyone or chase everyone until a hero kills them."

"All the monsters do this?" He had always been wary of sweeping generalizations.

"Well, I suppose not all of them. I guess sometimes they fall in love like in Beauty and the Beat, and then they are good. Or sometimes they are funny like in Shrek and he fell in love too."

"Oh, so to be a good monster you have to fall in love?"

She thought about this for a while and couldn't think of any monsters who turned out to be good and didn't fall in love. In fact, most of them fell in love with princesses.

"Yeah" she said, "I guess it's pretty important to do that."

He had been in love a long time ago, before he came to his cave. Before there were little girls or even that many birds on the outside. He hadn't thought about it in a very long time, but now that he did he could feel a little bit of the way he used to feel.

"I was in love once, I may still be in love with her a little."

"That's good." She said with huge volume of relief in her voice. The monster was surprised that something that small could seem to be filled with that much relief. "Was she a princess?"

"No, I don't think she was a princess. At least she never mentioned it."

"Was she beautiful?"

"I loved to look at her. And she was very soft."

The little girl looked at his bear-like fur and could easily believe that something it loved would be very soft.

"I would like to hear about her, but I should be getting home. Can you you lift me out of the hole?"

"The ceiling is too high, even for me. But I can carry you to another opening, and while we walk I will tell you about her."

And maybe he did.

Splitting Hairs

Recently, Dr. Qui Peng of Georgetown University’s School of Medicine and Dr. Laura Naylor of the Mayo Clinic isolated a bacterium that had been causing severe respiratory failure in those who had inhaled it. These bacteria fed almost exclusively off of filamentous biomaterial such as the material that makes up our hair. 85% of those who suffered from the respiratory failure were hairdressers.

The bacteria eats into the center of the hair beneath the Dermic coat and Hyaline layer so few are exposed to it until the hair is cut open. The bacteria becomes especially potent when exposed to an oxidizing agent or an alkalizing agent. These agents are present in virtually all permanent hair color products.

Fortunately for the reticent, when this bacteria is inhaled through the nose it is effectively disposed of through the nasal cavity's ciliated pseudostratified columnar epithelium. However, when inhaled through the mouth, more of the bacteria is transferred to the lungs where it will eventually cause respiratory failure. Unfortunately so many hair dressers spend so much time talking and so few of them are trained in ventriloquism the probability of stylist being exposed increases with every question answered and asked.

Attempting to treat the infected has proven difficult. It was established that the spread of the bacteria and it's effect on the lungs could be mitigated if the patient could be made to stay quiet and very still. Though few doctors have been able to apply this treatment to their infected hair stylist patients given their natural predilection to conversation and hand movement. Many of the patients have literally talked themselves to death.

Funding for this research was provided by a grant from the John Paul DeJoria foundation whose mission statement is "To Provide better care for haircare professionals".

Dial M for Memories

It's been a while since I've watched Law and Order or Boston Legal so please forgive any errors in terms or rules of procedure

Defense The prosecution has failed to provide any evidence of my client's guilt. I move for an immediate dismissal.

Judge I am inclined to grant the motion. Does the prosecution have anything it would like to add?

Prosecutor The prosecution calls to the stand... The Defendant's Mattress!

(Gasps are heard throughout the courtroom)

Defense Your Honor, I object to this witness. A mattress cannot be made to testify against its clients.

Judge Though the mattress and the defendant have been sleeping together, they are not married so their communication is not considered privileged. That said, while there are many instances of evidence being take from off or out of a mattress I have never heard of one willing to testify against a client. Tread carefully counselor.

ProsecutorWill you please state your name and occupation for the courtroom?

MattressMy name is Mattress, and I am a professional mattress.

ProsecutorAnd do you have any specialties that make you unique?

MattressI am a memory-foam mattress.

(Gasps are heard throughout the courtroom. The defendant lowers and shakes his head)

ProsecutorSo you could tell us things about the defendant that a normal mattress would not have ever known, or at least would not be able to remember, is that correct?

DefenseObjection! Leading the mattress! I mean the wittress! I mean the witness!

JudgeObjection sustained. You will abstain from fluffing the testimony of the mattress. This is your last warning.

ProsecutorI withdraw the question. Mattress, can you tell us what makes a memory-foam mattress unique?

MattressI remember the positions of the people who sleep on me, and the distribution of their weight, so eventually I conform to their preferred sleeping positions. After the same person sleeps on me long enough I begin to remember their memories and conform to those memories so recollection is easier for them when they're laying on me.

ProsecutorDo any of the memories added after October 25th stand out?

MattressHe returned to bed much later than usual the night of October 25th. Really it was more like early morning on the 26th. He was acting really strange. He didn't slip into his normal indent on the right side of the bed, but lay on his side on the left side for a while. I knew he would wake up with a backache if I let him stay there, so when he had fallen asleep I settled him over into his usual spot. After a while his memories started to foam up so I could start to take them in. He had knocked the pillow off the bed, so the memories were even more clear than usual.

That night he had met a woman for dinner who I recognized from other memories. After dinner, they walked to his bank where she worked. The bank was closed, but they walked round the back and used a card she had to get into the back offices. They went into an office with the name Steve Melvin on the door, and he picked a lock on the desk and took out a key. A hallway from those offices led to another room she scanned her way into. It was full of safety deposit boxes. He had a box at this bank, but it had been in a different room accessible from the main lobby. There were two key holes in one of the boxes and he put in the key he had just taken out of the desk and she took a key off of a chain around her neck. They took out a small case, but never opened it so I don't know what was inside. They walked out the way they had come in and got into a cab parked a few blocks away.

They drove about 15 miles South on I-5 until they came to a rest stop. He said he had to use the bathroom and didn't take the case, but when he passed her line of sight he walked on to the other side of the rest stop and got into a different car. He waited there for about a minute and a half until he heard 3 gunshots then he drove off North on I-5.

Prosecutor (Holding up a photograph of a dead woman in a car.) Is this the woman and the car from his memory?

The mattress starts to cry. It looks down at its left side where, if you knew what you were looking for, you could see the indentation of a woman who slept on her left side and had the most beautiful memories the mattress had ever remembered.

Lawless Victory

My Mother came from Argentina and my Father came from Australia. We all know Australia as a penal colony of the United Kingdom; populated by old-timey English criminals and enormous rodents. And my Mother, though she came from Argentina is actually of German decent. German residents of Argentina are well known as remnant Nazis. So here I was born in the heartland of America with the blood of Nazis and petty thieves; and yet, bam I became a citizen of the greatest country in the world.

I bring this up because there was a lot of talk in the last election campaigning from several prominent politicians and pundits suggesting that we repeal the 14th amendment. As a civics refresher, the 14th amendment guarantees (among other things) that if you are born in the United States then you are a citizen of the United States, regardless of your parent's nationality. Or as they put it:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

I not only worry about the next generation of first generation citizens, but also for myself, as there is no reason to think that they wouldn't make the repealing of the amendment retroactive. To protect my self and others I propose the introduction of Buffer Amendments. We introduce one each election cycle that says that no amendment can be repealed unless this amendment is first repealed. And no more than one amendment can be repealed at a time. So we keep hammering these buffers into the constitution until the xenophobics (those afraid of foreigners and warrior princesses) start repealing them, then we push back and forth in a mighty battle for citizenship.

Now, at this point some of you are saying to yourself, "This sounds remarkably similar to the system that protects our world from demon invasion by requiring that the demons defeat earth's warriors in trial by Mortal Kombat (spelling?) for seven years in a row." And while I am not prepared to address that concern at this time I will say that there is merit to the analogy and if we had appointed Lord Raiden as Secretary of Energy a decade ago we would be paying much lower energy bills today.