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jackWith thanks to Ian and Kirsty, and Anna, who asked the question, what if everything were this weird? Woo! I write serials!
Everyone remembers where they were on G-day, but mine is the story everyone wants to hear. I'd been asked to teach at a maths/physics summer school for gifted primary school children. It took me away from my husband for two weeks which I never liked, but he was taciturn and self-sufficient, so I knew it'd be ok.
I arrived at the school, fighting my way through the photographers. For once, apart from our pet dunagree Col riding on my shoulders, I wasn't wearing a dungaree my husband had caught, and the press wanted to capture my new outfit for the front of the maths magazines.
When I broke clear of them I was dismayed to see a more critical posse barring my way. Flat Universers were picketing the building. These yoyos never accepted that the universe curved back on itself, and most refuse to believe it's curved at all. Simple explanations of the evidence, or ways to treat it purely as a mathematical construct with no physical representation make no impression on them, and their growing lobby is trying to silence teaching physics in schools.
They knew I was a respected classical physicist, and claimed the school represented an indocrination of the brightest of the next generation, so felt justified in hurling abuse and worse things. The trick of skimming a tomato against gravity, so it slides horizontally (technically an ellipse round the earth) could only be invented by someone who has intuition in four dimensions, but the Flat Universers tended to use it without understanding, and a barrage fled toward me now.
Col lashed out with a strap and a leg and the tomatoes stalled and dropped. I looked in dismay at the nearest reporter. "Have they been doing this all day?"
"Yes, maam." She described a skillful thrower sending several successively faster tomatoes which all lost impulse at the same time above the head of the same small girl. "She caught them on her textbook, but it was cruel, cruel hard of them."
You can justify a lot "for their own good." The Yoyos don't see it as terrorising innocent kids but as a last ditch effort to save them, but they disgusted me. I gave them my best glare and they fell aside, the laggards patting their just-smoking clothing and muttering about me.
"I'll be inside," I told the press, and swept in. Col hissed silently at the Yoyos, rattling his buckles menacingly and the press frantically snapped pictures of the frustrated protestors.
Late that afternoon, everyone had been enrolled, and been through some introduction exercises, and I was teaching the second actual class of the day. Col dozed in a corner, occasionally rumbling with the ratchet rubbing of denim on denim, and the students, finally tired of petting him and staring at him, were starting to pay attention to me.
I was still amazed how advanced mathematics the children could cope with when they were started early, not held back, and carefuly protected from incredulity. I sketched a diagram of the earth on the blackboard (don't laugh, you try drawing a circle on a blackboard) and another of the universe (don't laugh, you try drawing another one, two exatimes bigger!).
I began to explain the equations of which Newton's, which they were familiar with, were a linearisation of, when Col howled. She never normally voiced at all, I hadn't thought she could, and this was heart rending, so the enitre class stared and then rushed to him. I saw his torso had momentarily collapsed nearly flat, making the noise as the expelled air strummed by one of his straps. Now she lept to me, cradling my leg, and whimpering by rubbing his straps on his buckles in a more normal manner.
I looked about for what could have caused his distress and saw nothing. That's when she saved my life.
There was a storage locker under the floor we used for equipment, and occasionally to demonstrate potential energy (Do you have potential zero? Yes? Look down? Does that mean you wouldn't fall if I opened the door?) It had rusted a little and Col tore into it, gouging with her straps and buckles, until she shoved most of her torso through the metal ring and heaved upward. Dungarees aren't that strong, but she shifted it, and mesmerised I stooped to yank it up. She fled down, and then whined at as to follow.
About then a massive hum permeated the school, and I began to share Col's awful premonition, and jumped down, calling to the kids to follow as fast as they can. It was a tight squeeze, and it had just occurred to me to duck and I'd nearly brought myself below floor level, when there was a massive flash, and a crack, and something hit me on the back.
The enitre school was flat.
Walls, rooves, people, books, physics, shelves, equipment, were lying in a compacted layer, several acres completely flat with an apologetic skyline round the side. Fortunately it had shattered on the edge of our hideyhole, so we were able to push some hefty chunks aside and climb up.
I stared in horror and clutched Col to me. The Flat Universers had set of a gravity bomb.
It would be their fringe wing, the lunatics even the rest of their organisation didn't support, either because they were evil, or because mass destruction is counterproductive propaganda. They'd planted something in the school to make a statement, and now, G-day, the rest of the country was shocked into action.
Now, however, it felt up to me. I looked up and saw two of the terrorists skimming away on a disc. They couldn't be allowed to strike such a blow for ignorance.
I scooped up Col, and with a moment's reassurance for her, skimmed her toward the disc. I got the angle exactly right, she actually accelerated as she went higher, and without losing her balance stretched out into a streamlined line, heading for the throat.
I'd seen some nasty dungaree wounds before, but always by a protective or scared animal. In the moments before the disc crashed, the cameras showed something horrific. Dungarees really can suck your guts out.
That was random. Interesting points:
* It's funny. I wrote nearly a kiloword right now just because I sat down and needed to, and didn't edit anything. When I try I barely get anything, I think I need to work out better what inspires me.
* That was really insane, but fun. I love the ridiculous that just somehow sounds inevitable.
* All the present characters turned out female. I didn't intend it, but once I was about half way I decided to let it go on. Dungarees change sex as they mature.
* If I were to become famous for a novel, people would read this and wonder what I was smoking, maybe literally. Yet many authors have one off short works only meaningful to a specific audience; the days of magazines were great for it.
* The ending is weak. I wasn't quite sure where I was going, but I'm sure I'll never recapture the mood, so this is all there is.
* This was written before my post about carbon dioxide, in case you were wondering.
Everyone remembers where they were on G-day, but mine is the story everyone wants to hear. I'd been asked to teach at a maths/physics summer school for gifted primary school children. It took me away from my husband for two weeks which I never liked, but he was taciturn and self-sufficient, so I knew it'd be ok.
I arrived at the school, fighting my way through the photographers. For once, apart from our pet dunagree Col riding on my shoulders, I wasn't wearing a dungaree my husband had caught, and the press wanted to capture my new outfit for the front of the maths magazines.
When I broke clear of them I was dismayed to see a more critical posse barring my way. Flat Universers were picketing the building. These yoyos never accepted that the universe curved back on itself, and most refuse to believe it's curved at all. Simple explanations of the evidence, or ways to treat it purely as a mathematical construct with no physical representation make no impression on them, and their growing lobby is trying to silence teaching physics in schools.
They knew I was a respected classical physicist, and claimed the school represented an indocrination of the brightest of the next generation, so felt justified in hurling abuse and worse things. The trick of skimming a tomato against gravity, so it slides horizontally (technically an ellipse round the earth) could only be invented by someone who has intuition in four dimensions, but the Flat Universers tended to use it without understanding, and a barrage fled toward me now.
Col lashed out with a strap and a leg and the tomatoes stalled and dropped. I looked in dismay at the nearest reporter. "Have they been doing this all day?"
"Yes, maam." She described a skillful thrower sending several successively faster tomatoes which all lost impulse at the same time above the head of the same small girl. "She caught them on her textbook, but it was cruel, cruel hard of them."
You can justify a lot "for their own good." The Yoyos don't see it as terrorising innocent kids but as a last ditch effort to save them, but they disgusted me. I gave them my best glare and they fell aside, the laggards patting their just-smoking clothing and muttering about me.
"I'll be inside," I told the press, and swept in. Col hissed silently at the Yoyos, rattling his buckles menacingly and the press frantically snapped pictures of the frustrated protestors.
Late that afternoon, everyone had been enrolled, and been through some introduction exercises, and I was teaching the second actual class of the day. Col dozed in a corner, occasionally rumbling with the ratchet rubbing of denim on denim, and the students, finally tired of petting him and staring at him, were starting to pay attention to me.
I was still amazed how advanced mathematics the children could cope with when they were started early, not held back, and carefuly protected from incredulity. I sketched a diagram of the earth on the blackboard (don't laugh, you try drawing a circle on a blackboard) and another of the universe (don't laugh, you try drawing another one, two exatimes bigger!).
I began to explain the equations of which Newton's, which they were familiar with, were a linearisation of, when Col howled. She never normally voiced at all, I hadn't thought she could, and this was heart rending, so the enitre class stared and then rushed to him. I saw his torso had momentarily collapsed nearly flat, making the noise as the expelled air strummed by one of his straps. Now she lept to me, cradling my leg, and whimpering by rubbing his straps on his buckles in a more normal manner.
I looked about for what could have caused his distress and saw nothing. That's when she saved my life.
There was a storage locker under the floor we used for equipment, and occasionally to demonstrate potential energy (Do you have potential zero? Yes? Look down? Does that mean you wouldn't fall if I opened the door?) It had rusted a little and Col tore into it, gouging with her straps and buckles, until she shoved most of her torso through the metal ring and heaved upward. Dungarees aren't that strong, but she shifted it, and mesmerised I stooped to yank it up. She fled down, and then whined at as to follow.
About then a massive hum permeated the school, and I began to share Col's awful premonition, and jumped down, calling to the kids to follow as fast as they can. It was a tight squeeze, and it had just occurred to me to duck and I'd nearly brought myself below floor level, when there was a massive flash, and a crack, and something hit me on the back.
The enitre school was flat.
Walls, rooves, people, books, physics, shelves, equipment, were lying in a compacted layer, several acres completely flat with an apologetic skyline round the side. Fortunately it had shattered on the edge of our hideyhole, so we were able to push some hefty chunks aside and climb up.
I stared in horror and clutched Col to me. The Flat Universers had set of a gravity bomb.
It would be their fringe wing, the lunatics even the rest of their organisation didn't support, either because they were evil, or because mass destruction is counterproductive propaganda. They'd planted something in the school to make a statement, and now, G-day, the rest of the country was shocked into action.
Now, however, it felt up to me. I looked up and saw two of the terrorists skimming away on a disc. They couldn't be allowed to strike such a blow for ignorance.
I scooped up Col, and with a moment's reassurance for her, skimmed her toward the disc. I got the angle exactly right, she actually accelerated as she went higher, and without losing her balance stretched out into a streamlined line, heading for the throat.
I'd seen some nasty dungaree wounds before, but always by a protective or scared animal. In the moments before the disc crashed, the cameras showed something horrific. Dungarees really can suck your guts out.
That was random. Interesting points:
* It's funny. I wrote nearly a kiloword right now just because I sat down and needed to, and didn't edit anything. When I try I barely get anything, I think I need to work out better what inspires me.
* That was really insane, but fun. I love the ridiculous that just somehow sounds inevitable.
* All the present characters turned out female. I didn't intend it, but once I was about half way I decided to let it go on. Dungarees change sex as they mature.
* If I were to become famous for a novel, people would read this and wonder what I was smoking, maybe literally. Yet many authors have one off short works only meaningful to a specific audience; the days of magazines were great for it.
* The ending is weak. I wasn't quite sure where I was going, but I'm sure I'll never recapture the mood, so this is all there is.
* This was written before my post about carbon dioxide, in case you were wondering.