Dear diary,
Things were really good after the Great War ended, because not only did the Everlasting Peace that welled up in its wake make future warfare impossible forever after, but it also stopped all conflicts of any kind. No longer were there any armed counter-insurrections, gang fights, regime-change operations, mobster murders, mass-bombing campaigns, nuclear-physics professors, or even petty arguments over brand names. And none of this harmony was forced: it wasn’t like people were yearning to punch one another in the face but instead were compelled to repress this natural instinct lest the corporate drone-bots that watch over every pinpoint of spacetime alert the Giant Squid that lives in the Heaven of Heavens to nip their credit score with its beak. No: folks actually desired to get along. It was like someone opened up one of those trick cans of nuts that contain no nuts but only a coiled springy-snake, and this fake snake stands for forgiveness in the present parable.
So the days passed smoothly. There were no more churches or priests in existence, because Jesus lived among us; and everyone was friendly, as opposed to hyper-competitive. The building that I once lived in, which formerly smelled foul, now smells fresh — and the reason for this is not that I moved out, but rather that someone sliced a watermelon recently and served it to starving refugees for a fee before shooing them away.
And all the Mining Companies and their private armies are the only people who can still open fire on strikers; moreover they are exempt from all child-labor laws. But that’s OK. And the Green Energy Cartel is the only, and I mean ONLY, transnational left that is allowed legally to continue polluting the planet at a pace faster than Science’s Cleanup Squad can keep up with. So that’s not bad. That’s almost progress.
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The next thing my cows and I did was solve the mystery of the pyramids again. This mystery, as is implied by my previous sentence’s word ‘again’, had been already solved; but I solved it better, this time around. I brought the style of deduction and solution up-to-date; and remember that nobody in our present time even argues about politics anymore, so there was no bickering as we entered the ancient land and ratified a stack of documents that had the result of making exodus impossible.
The key to how they moved those enormous stones from Duluth, Minnesota, where they found them, all the way to Giza, Egypt, where my pyramids are currently located, was that they used wooden logs as rollers, like a conveyor belt, instead of just trying to push the things thru the woodlands of the Midwestern U.S. and the sinking sand of the Ancient World, which is very much harder.
Also, the Egyptian civilization invented electricity, which powered a life-sized doll of Thomas Jefferson that would whip their employees as they worked, thus providing motivation.
So I got to scribble out the place where the last sleuth stamped “Case Closed” on the manila file that contains the manuscript of The Truth about Egypt, and then I wrote “Case Closed by Detective Bryan” underneath the scribbled out part. Also I found a way to build a wooden attic above the all-seeing eye of the Great Pyramid so that my personal chef Boccaccio would have a place to stay and an elaborate kitchen to cook in.
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Then I constructed a sledge and told the sky to precipitate. While the snowflakes were accumulating, I hauled my cows two-by-two onto the sledge; then I married an Egyptian virgin who was already pregnant, and I swaddled them both up (mother and fetus) and let them stay in my underground bunker. “Don’t touch my honey pots,” I told them both, after placing an unpickable padlock on the cupboard. But I wasn’t TOO cruel to my new wife and just-born child (the babe came out during the moment when I was yelling about the honey), for I left open the cupboards that contain all the cigarette cartons and light beer.
Then I go to the Pharaoh and beg the magicians who are always standing in the gloom behind him to construct a Russian serf from the Good Old Days to be my personal assistant. And these magicians use a 3-D printer to make a mechanical version of what looks like Toshiro Mifune, the film actor best known for his collaboration with director Akira Kurosawa in such classics as Rashomon (1950), Seven Samurai (1954), The Hidden Fortress (1958), Throne of Blood (1957), and Yojimbo (1961).
“Is this guy really Russian?” I say.
“Yes,” reply the magicians of Pharaoh’s palace.
“Are you sure?” I say, after studying him for a long time. (The droid’s power switch remains in the “Off” position while I inspect its craftsmanship.) “He looks rather Japanese,” I add. “Don’t get me wrong: it’s a great model — even better than what I had in mind, actually; so I’m not complaining — yet, my request was for a robotic Russian serf… is it possible that you guys made a mistake?”
But I receive no answer, because all the royal attendants and statesmen of Pharaoh’s cabinet have vacated the palace. Only Pharaoh himself remains, seated on his throne. But he is a myth, so he just stares straight ahead and can’t perceive anything (other than what he’s dreaming about, which is apparently not me).
So I lead my new assistant thru the snow, which is now thigh-deep, to the sledge with all my cows on it. The android sez: “I can help you with this task. Do you prefer to take the wide, straight road that is very smooth, or the narrow, crooked road that is extremely dangerous?” (I toggled the statue’s power switch to the “On” position while we were traveling here, because I realized that it was easier to let him walk on his own robo-legs instead of piggybacking him.) “The narrow, crooked path,” I say without hesitation.
“Are you sure?” The android replies.
“Look,” I say, “if you’re too scared, then I’ll just pilot the sledge by myself. You can take the evening off. But I must visit my patients. I’m a doctor, remember? (I told you my life-story when I was carrying you here — did you forget it so quickly?) I have a great many housecalls to make tonight; and people’s lives hang in the balance: whether each individual survives or expires depends exclusively upon my speed of travel. My cows are with me — now, are you in or out?”
“I have a choice?” sez the robot’s computer-brain.
“Yes, and please hurry! The seconds are ticking away, and every moment wasted means additional suffering for some poor injured creature.”
“I’ll stay here,” sez the droid resolvedly.
“Alright, suit yourself,” I say. Then the sledge that my cows and I are riding on speeds into the ice-capped mountains, on the narrow crooked path that I programmed it to take, while I wave goodbye to the Toshirobot.
[To be continued...]
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