December 22, 2004

• From one of the most brilliant writers of our time, Kurt Vonnegut, in Timequake, speaking of his alter-ego Kilgore Trout:

  
  

  Trout said this was the story on why AIDS and new strains of syph and clap and the blueballs were making rounds like Avon ladies run amok:  On September 1st of 1945, immediately after the end of World War Two, representatives of all the chemical elements held a meeting on the planet Tralfamadore.  They were there to protest some of their members’ having been incorporated into the bodies of big, sloppy, stinky organisms as cruel and stupid as human beings.

  
  

  Elements such as Polonium and Ytterbium, which had never been essential parts of human beings, were nonetheless outraged at any chemicals should be so misused.

  
  

  Carbon, although an embarassed veteran of countless massacres throughout history, focused the attention of the meeting on the public execution of only one man, accused of treason in fifteenth-century England.  He was hanged until almost dead.  He was revived.  His abdomen was slit open.

  
  

  The executioner pulled out a loop of his intestines.  He dangled the loop before the man’s face and burned it with a torch here and there.  The loop was still attached to the rest of the man’s insides.  The executioner and his assistants tied a horse to each of his four limbs.

  
  

  They whipped the horses, which ripped the man into four jagged pieces.  These were hung on display from meathooks in a marketplace.

  
  

  It had been agreed before the meeting was called to order that no one was to tell of terrible things grown-up human beings had done to children, according to Trout.  Several delegates threatened to boycott the meeting if they were expected to sit while listening to tales that sickening.  What would be the point?

  
  

  “What grownups had done to grownups left no doubt that the human race should be exterminated,” said Trout.  “Rehashing ad nauseam what grownups had done to children would be gilding the lily, so to speak.”

  
  

  Nitrogen wept about its involuntary servitude as parts of Nazi guards and physicians in death camps during World War Two.  Potassium told hair-raising stories about the Spanish Inquisition, and Calcium about the Roman Games, and Oxygen about black African slavery.

  
  

  Sodium said enough was enough, that any further testimony would be coals to Newcastle.  It made a motion that all chemicals involved in medical research combine whenever possible to create even more powerful antibiotics.  These in turn would cause disease organisms to evolve new strains that were resistant to them.

  
  

  In no time, Sodium predicted, every human ailment, including acne and jock itch, would be not only incurable but fatal.  “All humans will die,” said Sodium, according to Trout.  “As they were at the birth of the Universe, all elements will be free of sin again.”

  
  

  Iron and Magnesium seconded Sodium’s motion.  Phosphorus called for a vote.  The motion was passed by acclamation. 

  • 6:59 pm
  • 2 Comments