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The Longest Joke in the World
(correct me if it's not)
Lost in the Desert
Story synopsis: This thin pitiful man named Jack is crawling through
the desert.
To make a long story short, Jack had decided to take his revamped Jeep
SUV for a cross-country adventure, got a lot of enjoyment zooming over
badlands and jockeying the Jeep over sandy terrain; however, he naively
deviated from that spot, got lost, the vehicle hit a big rock and
stalled, and Jack couldn't get the Jeep SUV to start again. There were
no cell phone towers anywhere near, so a cell phone was totally useless.
Jack had no relatives; his parents had expired years before in a car
accident. As Jack was a private, introverted man, he had met few
friends, and his few frat roommates have no idea where he went.
Jack camped in the vented Jeep for a day or two. His only bottle of
water was empty, he was getting very thirsty and had no more food. He
had paid attention to the sun on his Jeep journey, and he'd figured out
which way was north, so now thought maybe he knew the direction back to
town. He decided to attempt to walk to the last town he'd filled the
empty gas tank in. He figured that it was only approximately thirty miles.
Jack thought about traveling at night to avoid the heat, but based on
how dark it actually was the night before, and having no flashlight, was
afraid that he'd break a leg or encounter a rattlesnake. He put on
protective sun block, put the rest in a vest pocket for application
later, retrieved a jacket he'd put in the back of the Jeep to provide
shade, a timepiece, Jeep key, a pocket knife in case he finds a cactus
or other vegetation that might contain water. He poured automotive
windshield wiper fluid into an empty water bottle, in case he got
desperate, jotted a note, locked the vacant Jeep, and set out in the
same approximate direction.
Jack attempts to jog-trot in severe heat for the majority of the day. By
the end of the day, he is very thirsty. He'd been sweating all day and
perceives that his parched lips are cracked. He puts on the sun block
repeatedly and tries to stay protected under the jacket, but gets
sunburned anyway. The windshield fluid is very tempting now. Jack knows
that it's pretty much only water with some ethanol and coloring, but he
also thinks they add some type of poison to it to keep people from
drinking it. He wonders what the poison is, and whether it would be
worse than dying of thirst.
Jack trudges on, calculating that he can get to the town just before
full darkness.
By the end of the day Jack is getting depressed. He figures he's been
walking at least three miles an hour, according to his timepiece, for
over ten hours. That means if his estimate was correct he should be very
close to the town. But he doesn't recognize any of this. He had to cross
a dry creek bed a mile or two back, and he doesn't remember driving
through it in the Jeep SUV. Jack figures that maybe he got his direction
off just a little and that the dry creek bed was just adjacent to his
path. He patiently reminds himself that he's very close, that after dark
he'll start to see the town lights over one of these sandy hills, and
that'll be all he needs to see.
As it gets dim enough that he starts to stumble over small stones and
things, Jack seeks a spot to sit down and wait for the inevitable dark
and, hopefully, a view of the bejeweled town.
Enveloping darkness comes before he knows it. He must have dozed off. He
stands back up and vigilantly pivots all the way around. He perceives
nothing but stars.
Jack wakes up the next morning feeling totally terrible. His eyes are
gummy and his mouth and nose feel like they're full of sand. He is so
thirsty that he can't even swallow. He barely got any sleep, as it was
very cold. He'd forgotten how extremely cold it got at night in the
desert and hadn't noticed it the night before because he'd spent it in
his Jeep.
Jack knows the Rule of Threes - three minutes without air, three days
without water, three weeks without food - then you die. Some people can
survive a little longer, in the best situation. But the desert heat and
the inconvenience of having to walk and sweat isn't the best situation
to be without water. He figures, unless he can find water, this will be
his last day alive.
Jack rinses his mouth out with a little of the automotive windshield
wiper fluid. He hesitates a while after spitting a little bit out, to
see if his mouth goes numb, or he feels jittery or something. Has his
mouth gone numb? Is it just in his mind? He'll journey a little farther,
and if he still doesn't find water, he'll try drinking some of the fluid.
Then Jack has to face his next, harder question - which way does he go
from here? Does he keep walking in the same trajectory as yesterday
(assuming that he still knows which way that is), or does he try a new
direction? Dejected, he has no idea what to do.
Looking at the hills and dunes around him, Jack thinks he knows the
direction he was heading before. Just going by a positive feeling, he
points himself somewhat to the left of that, and starts to move.
As he walks, the day begins to heat up. The desert, too cold just a
couple of hours before, soon becomes an oven again. Jack sweats a little
at first and then stops. He starts getting negative. He knows that when
your sweat evaporates, that means you're in trouble - usually right
before a heat stroke.
Jack decides that it's time to try the tepid windshield wiper fluid. He
can't wait any longer -- if he passes out, he's dead. He stops in the
shade of a large rock, takes the bottle out, opens it, and takes a
tentative mouthful. He slowly swallows it, making it last as long as he
can. No symptoms yet. It feels so good in his dry throat that he
doesn't even care about the nasty taste. He takes another mouthful, and
makes that one last too. Slowly, he drinks half the bottle. He figures
that since he's drinking it, he might as well drink enough to make some
difference and keep himself from passing out.
Jack has quit worrying about the denaturing of the wiper fluid. If it
kills him, so be it - if he didn't drink it, he'd die anyway. Besides,
he's pretty sure that whatever substance they denature the fluid with is
just designed to make you sick - their way of keeping winos from buying
cheaper wiper fluid for the ethanol content. He can handle vomiting, if
it comes to that.
Jack perseveres. He walks the hot, dry, windless desert, jockeying sandy
dunes, rocks, hills. He sees occasional vegetation -- a cactus or dry
bush, yet no sign of water. Sometimes he'd see a little movement to one
side or the other, but whatever moves is usually gone before he can
focus his eyes on it. Probably birds, lizards, rats, mice, or even a
coyote. Maybe snakes, though they usually move more at night. He's
careful to stay away from the movements.
After a while, Jack begins to stagger. He is overtaxed. He's not sure if
it's fatigue, heat stroke finally catching him, or maybe he was wrong
and the denaturing of the wiper fluid was worse than he thought. He
tries to revive himself to keep going.
After more walking, Jack comes to a large expanse of sand. This is
great! He knows he drove over a stretch of sand in the Jeep SUV -- he
remembers he enjoyed weaving and doing donuts on it in the Jeep. Or at
least he thinks he remembers it -- he's getting tired enough that he's
not exactly sure what he remembers any more or if he's just
hallucinating. But he thinks he remembers it. He heads off into it,
trying to get to the other side, hoping that it gets him closer to the town.
Jack was heading for a town, wasn't he? He thinks he was. He isn't
certain any more. He's not even certain how long he's been walking any
more. Is it still morning? Or has it moved into afternoon and the sun is
going down again? It must be afternoon -- it seems like it's been too
long since he started out.
Jack walks through the sand.
After a while, Jack approaches a vast dune in the sand. That is bad. He
doesn't remember noting elevated dunes when driving over the sand in his
Jeep SUV. Or, at least he doesn't think he remembers any. This is very bad.
But, he has no other direction to go. Too late to turn back now. Jack
decides to get to the top of the dune to see if he can see anything from
there that helps him find the town. He keeps going up the dune.
Halfway up, Jack slips in the bad footing of the sand for the second or
third time, and falls onto his knees. He doesn't feel like getting back up
- he'll just fall down again. So, he keeps advancing up the dune on his
hands and knees.
Jack was crawling; if his throat weren't dry, he'd laugh. He's finally
gotten to the bottom, the hackneyed image of a panting man lost in the
desert crawling on his hands and knees. It would be the perfect image,
he imagines, if only his clothes were tatty. The people that crawled
through the desert in cartoons always had tatty, ragged clothes. But his
have lasted without any tears, so far. Somebody will probably find his
corpse half buried in sand years from now, and his clothes will still be
in fine shape - shake out the sand, a good wash, and they'd be good as
new again. Jack wishes his throat were wet enough to laugh. He coughs a
little instead, but it hurts.
Jack navigates up to the tiptop of the elevated peak of the most
majestic dune. Now he's at the optimal vantage point, he's pooped, but
he revives, manages to stand up, pivot and look over the edge. All he
observes at the top is sand. Sand, and more sand spills over to the
bottom. Behind him, approximately a mile away, he thinks he spots the
jagged ground he left to venture over to the sandy spot in the Jeep SUV.
Ahead of him, more dunes. Okay, this is not where he drove his Jeep SUV.
This is Hell. Or pretty close to it.
Again, Jack doesn't know what to do. He decides to drink the wiper fluid
while figuring it out. He takes out the bottle, and is removing the cap,
when he glances to the side and sees something odd. Something in the
sand. At the bottom of the dune, off to the side, he sees something
strange. It's a flat spot in the sand. He stops taking the cap of the
bottle off, and tries to look closer. The area seems to be circular. And
it's darker than the sand. There seems to be something in the middle of
it, but he can't tell what it is. He looks as hard as he can, and still
can't tell from here. He's going to have to go down and look.
Jack puts the bottle back into his pocket, and starts to stumble down
the dune. After a few steps, he realizes that he's in trouble -- he's
not going to be able to keep his footing. After a couple of more
sliding, tottering steps, he falls and starts to roll down the dune. The
sand is so hot when his body hits it that for a minute he thinks he has
caught fire on the way down - as the enactment of a car wreck on TV
flashing into vivid flames as it goes over the cliff, before it ever
even hits the ground. Devastated, Jack closes his mouth, covers his eyes
with his hands, and waits to stop rolling.
Jack hesitates at the bottom of the dune. After a minute or two, he
finds enough energy to try to sit up and get the sand out of his face
and clothes. When he clears his eyes enough, he looks around to make
sure that the dark spot in the sand it still there and he hadn't just
imagined it.
Seeing that the flat, dark spot on the sand is still there, Jack begins
to crawl towards it. He'd get up and walk towards it, but he doesn't
seem to have the energy to get up and walk right now. He must be in the
final stage of dehydration he figures, as he crawls. If this place in
the sand doesn't have water, he'll likely never make it anywhere else.
This is his last chance.
Jack gets closer and closer, but still can't see what's in the middle of
the dark area. His eyes won't quite focus any more for some reason. And
lifting his head up to look takes so much effort that he gives up
trying. He just keeps crawling.
Finally, Jack reaches the area he'd seen from the dune. It takes him a
moment of crawling on it before he realizes that he's no longer on sand
- he's now crawling on some kind of dark-appearing stone. Stone with
some kind of primitive marking on it, a pattern carved into the stone.
Jack is too tired to stand up to see what the pattern is, so just keeps
crawling. He crawls towards the center, where his blurry eyes still see
something in the middle of the dark stone area.
His mind, detached in a strange way, notes that either his hands and
knees are so burnt by the hot sand that they no longer feel pain, or
that this dark stone, in the middle of a burning desert with a pounding,
punishing sun overhead, doesn't seem to be too hot. It almost feels
cool. He considers lying down on the nice cool surface.
Cool, dark stone. Not a good sign. He must be hallucinating. Jack
vomits. He thinks he is probably in the center of a patch of sand,
already lying face down, defeated and dying, and just imagining the
whole thing. A vision, a desert mirage. As portrayed in movies, a
beautiful captivating woman holding a water tank will join him and give
him a drink. Then he'll know he's a defunct cadaver.
Jack rejects the idea of laying down on the cool stone. If he's going to
die here in the middle of this vivid hallucination, he at least wants to
see what's in the center before he goes. He keeps crawling.
It's the third time that Jack hears the jovial voice before he realizes
what he's hearing. He would swear that someone just said, "Greetings,
traveler. You do not look well. Hello?"
Jack stops crawling. He tries to look up from where he is on his hands
and knees, but it's too much effort to lift his head. So he tries
something different - he leans back and tries to sit up on the stone.
After a few seconds, he catches his balance, avoids falling flat on his
face, sits up, and tries to focus his eyes. Too blurry. He rubs his eyes
with his hands and tries again. Better this time. Jack can see.
He is sitting in the middle of a large, flat, dark expanse of stone.
Directly next to him, about three feet away, is a white post or pole
about two inches in diameter and protruding about four to five feet out
of the stone, at an angle.
And wound around this white rod, tail with rattle on it hovering and
seeming to be ready to start rattling, is what must be a fifteen foot
long coppery desert diamondback rattlesnake, looking directly at him.
Jack stares at the twisted snake in shock. He doesn't have the energy to
get up and run away. Given, he doesn't have the energy to crawl away,
he's trapped. No matter what happens, he's not going to be able to move
from this spot. "This is it, my final resting place."
At least dying of a potent bite directly from this toothy monster should
be quicker than dying of thirst. He'll face his end like a man. He
struggles to sit up a little straighter. The snake keeps watching him.
He lifts one feeble hand and waves it in the snake's direction. The
snake watches the hand for a moment, then goes back to watching the man,
looking into his eyes.
Hmm. Maybe the snake had no interest in biting him? It hadn't rattled
yet -- that was a good sign. Maybe Jack wasn't going to die of snake
bite after all.
Jack remembers that he'd looked up when he'd reached the center because
he thought he'd heard the jovial voice. He was still very disoriented --
he was likely to pass out soon, the sun still beat down on him even
though he was on cool stone. He still didn't have anything to drink. But
maybe he had actually heard a voice. This stone didn't look natural. Nor
did that white post sticking up out of the stone. Someone had to have
built this. Maybe they were still nearby. Maybe that was who talked to
him. Maybe this viper was even their gentle pet, and that's why it
wasn't biting.
Jack tries to clear his throat to say, "Hello," but his throat is too
dry. All that comes out is a coughing or wheezing sound. No way is he
going to be able to talk without something to drink. He feels his vest
pocket, and the bottle with the wiper fluid is still there. Jack shakily
pulls the bottle out, almost losing his balance and falling on his back
in the process. This isn't good. He hasn't much time left, by his
reckoning, before he passes out, incapacitated.
Jack pries the lid off of the bottle, manages to raise the bottle to his
lips, and pours some of the fluid into his mouth. He sloshes it around,
and then swallows it. He coughs a little. His throat feels better. Maybe
he can talk now.
Jack tries again. Ignoring the viper, he turns to look around him,
hoping to detect the owner of this place, and croaks out, "Hello? Is
there anyone here?"
He hears, from his side, "Greetings. What is it that you want?"
Jack turns his head, back towards the snake. That's where the sound
seemed to come from. The only thing he can think of is that there must
be a speaker, hidden under the snake, or maybe built into that post. He
decides to try asking for help.
"Please," Jack croaks again, suddenly feeling jittery, "I'd love to not
be thirsty any more. I've been a long time without water. Can you help me?"
Looking in the direction of the snake, hoping to see where the voice was
coming from this time, Jack is shocked to see the snake rear back, open
its toothy mouth, and speak. He hears it say, as momentary dizziness
overtakes him and he falls forward, face first on the stone, "Very well.
Coming up."
A piercing pain shoots through Jack's shoulder. Wow, suddenly he is
awake. He sits up and grabs his shoulder, wincing at the throbbing pain.
He's momentarily disoriented as he looks around, and then he remembers -
the crawl across the sand, the dark area of stone, the viper. He sees
the snake, still wrapped around the tilted white post, still looking at him.
Jack reaches up and feels his shoulder, where it hurts. It feels
slightly wet. He pulls his fingers away and looks at them - they are
bloody. He feels his shoulder again - his shirt has what feels like two
holes in it - two puncture holes - they match up with the two aching
spots on his shoulder. He had been bitten. By the snake. But why?
"It'll feel better in a moment." Jack looks up - it's the snake talking.
He hadn't dreamed it. Suddenly he notices - he's not jittery any more.
And more importantly, he's not thirsty any more - at all!
"Have I died? Is this the afterlife? Why are you biting me in the
afterlife?"
"Sorry about that, but I had to bite you," says the snake. "That's the
way I work. It all comes through the bite. Think of it as natural medicine."
"You bit me to help me? Why aren't I thirsty any more? Did you give me a
drink before you bit me? How did I drink enough while unconscious to not be
thirsty any more? I haven't had a drink for over two days. Well, except
for the windshield wiper fluid... hold it, how in the world does a snake
talk? Are you real? Are you some sort of Disney animation?"
"No," says the snake, "I'm real. As legitimate as you or anyone else,
anyway. I didn't give you water to drink. I bit you. That's how it works
- it's what I do. I bite. I don't have hands to give you a drink, even
if I had water just sitting around here."
Jack sat stunned for a moment. Here he was, sitting in the middle of the
desert on some strange stone that should be hot but wasn't, talking to a
snake that could talk back and had just bitten him. And he felt better.
Not great - he was still starving and exhausted, but much better - he
was no longer thirsty. He had started to sweat again, but only slightly.
He felt hot, in this sun, but it was starting to get lower in the sky,
and the cool stone beneath him was a relief he could notice now that he
was no longer dying of thirst.
"I might suggest that we take care of that methanol you now have in your
system with the next request," continued the snake. "I can guess why you
drank it, but I'm not sure how much you drank, or how much methanol was
left in the wiper fluid. That stuff is poison. It'll make you go blind
in a day or two, if you drank enough of it."
"Umm, next request?" said Jack. He put his hand back on his hurting
shoulder and backed away from the viper a little.
"That's the way it works. If you like it, that is," explained the snake.
"You get three requests. Call them wishes, if you wish." The snake
grinned at his own joke, and Jack drew back a little further from the
show of fangs.
"But there are rules," the snake continued. "The first request is free.
The second requires an agreement of secrecy. The third requires the
binding of responsibility." The snake looks at Jack seriously.
"By the way," the snake says suddenly, "my name is Nathan. Ol' Nathan,
Samuel used to call me. He gave me the name. Before that, most of the
Bound used to just call me 'Snake'. But that got old, and Samuel
wouldn't stand for it. He said that anything that could talk needed a
name. He was big into names. You can call me Nate, if you wish." Again,
the snake grinned. "Sorry if I don't offer to shake, but I think you can
understand - my shake sounds somewhat threatening." The snake give his
rattle a little shake.
"Umm, my name is Jack," said the man, trying to absorb all of this.
"Jack Samson.
"Can I ask you a question?" Jack says suddenly. "What happened to the
poison...umm, in your bite. Why aren't I twitching now? How did you do that?
What do you mean by that's how you work?"
"That's more than one question," grins Nate. "But I'll still try to
answer all of them. First, yes, you can ask me a question." The snake's
grin gets wider. "Second, the poison is in you. It changed you. You now
no longer need to drink. That's what you asked for. Or, well,
technically, you asked to not be thirsty any more - but 'any more' is
such a vague term. I decided to make it permanent - now, as long as you
live, you shouldn't need to drink much at all. Your body will conserve
water very efficiently. You should be able to get enough just from the
food you eat - much like a creature of the desert. You've been changed.
"For the third question," Nate continues, "you are still dying. Besides
the effects of that methanol in your system, you're a man - and men are
mortal.
In your current state, I'd imagine you have no more than about another
fifty years. Assuming you get out of this desert alive, that is." Nate
seemed vastly amused at his own humor, and continued his wide grin.
"As for the fourth question," Nate said, looking more serious as far as
Jack could tell, as Jack was just now working on his ability to read
talking-snake emotions from snake facial features, "first you have to
agree to make a second request and become bound by the secrecy, or I
can't tell you."
"Wait," Jack said jokingly, "isn't this where you say you could tell me,
but you'd have to kill me?"
"I thought that was implied." Nate continued to look serious.
"Umm...yeah." Jack leaned back a little as he remembered again that he
was talking to a fifteen foot poisonous reptile with a reputation for
having a nasty temper. "What is this 'Bound by Secrecy' stuff, and can
you really stop the effects of methanol?" Jack thought for a second.
"And, what do you mean methanol, anyway? I thought these days they use
ethanol in wiper fluid, and just denature it?"
"They might, I don't really know," said Nate. "I haven't gotten out in a
while. Maybe they do. All I know is that I smell methanol on your breath
and on that bottle in your pocket. And the blue color of the liquid when
you pulled it out to drink some let me guess that it was wiper fluid. I
assume that they still color wiper fluid blue?"
"Yeah, they do," said Jack.
"I figured," replied Nate. "As for being bound by secrecy with the
fulfillment of your next request, by definition, you will be bound to
say nothing about me, this place, or any of the information I will tell
you after that, when you decide to go back out to your kind. You won't
be allowed to talk about me, write about me, use sign language,
charades, or even act in a way that may lead someone to guess correctly
about me. You'll be totally bound to secrecy. Of course, I'll also ask
you to promise not to give me away, and as I'm guessing that you're a
man of your word, you'll never test the binding anyway, so you won't
notice." Nate said the last part with utter optimism.
Jack, who had always prided himself on being a man of integrity, felt a
little nervous at this. "Umm, hey, Nate, who are you? How did you know
that? Are you, umm, omniscient, telepathic, or something?"
Jack," said Nate sadly, "I can't tell you that, unless you make the
second request." Nate looked away for a minute, then looked back.
"Umm, well, okay," said Jack, "what is this about a second request? What
can I ask for? Are you allowed to tell me that?"
"Sure!" said Nate. "You're allowed to ask for changes. Elective changes
to yourself. They're like wishes, but they can only affect you. Oh, and
before you ask, I can't give you immortality. Or omniscience. Or
omnipresence, for that matter. Though I may be able to make you gaseous
and yet remain alive, and then you could spread through the atmosphere
and sort of be omnipresent. But what good would that be? You still
wouldn't be omniscient, thus still could only focus on one thing at a
time. Not a very useful concept, Jack, at least in my opinion." Nate
stopped when he realized that Jack was staring at him.
"Well, anyway," continued Nate, "I'd probably suggest giving you
permanent good health. It would negate the methanol now in your system,
you'd be immune to most poisons and diseases, and you'd tend to live a
very long time, barring accident, of course. And, Jack, you'll even have
an extraordinary tendency to recover from accidents well. Rejuvenation
always seemed like a good choice for a request, in my view."
"To cure the methanol toxicity, huh?" said Jack. "And keep me healthy
for a long time? Hmm. It doesn't sound bad at that. And it has to be a
request about an objective change to me? I can't ask to be rich? Because
that's not really a change to me, right?"
"Correct," nodded Nate.
"Could I ask to be a genius AND be permanently healthy?" Jack
supplicates, hopefully.
"That would take two requests, Jack, and my approval."
"Yeah, I figured so." Jack says, "But I could ask to be a genius? I
could ask to become the smartest scientist in the world? Or the best
athlete?"
"Well, I could make you very smart," admitted Nate, "but that wouldn't
necessarily make you the best scientist in the world. Or, I could make you
very athletic, but it wouldn't necessarily make you the best athlete
either. You've heard the saying that ninety-nine percent of genius is
hard work? Well, there's some truth to that. I can give you the talent,
but I can't make you work hard to activate it. It all depends on what
you decide to do with it."
"Hmm," said Jack. "I think I understand. I get a third request, after
this one?"
"Maybe," said Nate, "it depends on what you decide then. There are more
rules for the third request that I can only tell you about after the
second request. You know how it goes." Nate looked like he'd shrug, if
he had shoulders.
"OK, well, since I'd rather not be blind in a day or two, and permanent
health doesn't sound bad, then consider that my second request.
Officially. Do I need to sign in blood or something?"
"No," said Nate. "Just hold out your hand. Or heel." Nate grinned. "Or
whatever part you want me to bite. I have to bite you again. Like I
said, that's how it works - my poison is beneficial; it revives you,"
Nate said apologetically.
Jack winced a little and felt his shoulder, where the last bite had
been. Hey, it didn't hurt any more. Just like Nate had said. That made
Jack feel better about the biting business. But still, standing still
while a fifteen foot snake sunk it's fangs into you... Jack stood up.
Ignoring how good it felt to be able to stand again, and the excruciating
hunger gnawing at his stomach, Jack tried to decide where he wanted
to get bitten. Despite knowing that it wouldn't hurt for long, Jack knew
that this wasn't going to be easy.
"Hey, Jack," Nate suddenly said, looking past Jack towards the dunes
behind him, "is that someone else coming up over there?"
Jack reacted, spun around and looked. Who else could be out here in the
middle of nowhere? Did they any bring food?
Wait a minute, there was nobody over there. What was Nate...
Jack let out a reactive expletive as he felt two fangs sink into his
rear end, through his jeans.
Jack sat down carefully, favoring his more tender buttock. "I would have
decided, eventually, Nate. I was just thinking about it. You didn't have
to trick me like that."
"I've been doing this a long time, Jack," said Nate, confidently. "You
humans have a hard time sitting still and letting a snake bite you -
especially one my size. And besides, admit it - it's only been a couple
of moments and it already doesn't hurt any more, does it? That's because
of the health benefit with this one. I told you that you'd heal rapidly
now."
"Yeah, well, still," said Jack, "it's the principle of the thing. And
nobody likes to be bitten in the buttock! Couldn't you have gotten me in
my leg instead?"
"More meat in the typical human buttock," replied Nate. "And you're less
likely to accidentally kick me or jump at the last second."
"Yeah, right. So, tell me all of these wonderful secrets that I now
qualify to hear," answered Jack.
"Ok," said Nate. "Do you want to ask questions first, or do you want me to
just start talking?"
"Talk," said Jack. "I'll sit here attentively and try to not think about
food."
"We could go try to rustle up some food for you first, if you like,"
answered Nate.
"Hey! You didn't tell me you had food around here, Nate!" Jack jumped
up, captivated. "What do we have? Am I in walking distance to town? Or
can you magically whip up food along with your other powers?" Jack was
almost shouting with excitement. His stomach had been growling for hours.
"I was thinking more like I could flush something out of its hole and
bite it for you, and you could skin it and eat it. Assuming you have a
knife, that is," replied Nate, with the grin that Jack was starting to
get used to.
"Ugh," said Jack, sitting back down. "I think I'll pass. I can last a
little longer before I get desperate enough to eat desert rat, or
whatever else it is you eat out here. And there's nothing to burn - I'd
have to eat it raw. No thanks, I've lost my appetite. Just talk to me."
"Okay," replied Nate, still grinning. "But I'd better hurry, before you
start looking at me as food to eat.
Nate reared back a little, looked around for a second, and then
continued. "You, Jack, are sitting in the vicinity of the mythical
Garden of Eden."
Jack looked around at the sand and dunes and then looked back at Nate
sceptically.
"Well, that's the best I can figure it, anyway, Jack," said Nate. "Stand
up and look at the symbol on the rock here." Nate gestured around the
dark stone they were both sitting on with his nose.
Jack stood up and looked. Carved into the stone in a bas-relief was a
representation of a large tree. The angled-pole that Nate was wrapped
around was coming out of the trunk of the tree, right below where the
main branches left the truck to reach out across the stone. It was very
well done - it looked more like a tree had been reduced to almost two
dimensions and embedded in the stone than like a carving.
Jack walked around and palpated the details in the fading light of the
sunset. He wished he'd looked at it while the sun was higher in the sky.
Wait! The sun was setting! That meant he was going to have to spend
another night out here! Arrrgh!
Jack looked out across the desert for a little bit, and then came back
and stood next to the viper. "In all the excitement, I almost forgot,
Nate, which way is it back to town? And how far? I'm eventually going to
have to go back." Jack comments, "I'm not sure I'm ready to survive by
eating raw desert critters for very long. And even if I can, I'm not
sure I have the appetite."
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"Well, it's about thirty miles that way." Nate points, with the rattle on his tail this time. As far as Jack can tell, it is a direction at right
angles to the way he's been going when he was crawling here. "But that's
thirty miles by the way the crow flies. It's about forty by the way a
human walks. You should be able to do it in about half a day with your
improved endurance, if you head out first thing tomorrow."
Jack looks out the way the snake has pointed for a few seconds more, and
then sits back down. It is getting dark. Not much he can do about
heading out right now. And besides, Nate is just about to get to the
interesting stuff. "The Garden of Eden? As best as you can figure it?"
"Yesss, as best as Samuel and I could figure it, anyway," says Nate.
"He figured that the old story got a little mixed up. You know, snake, in a 'tree',
offering 'temptations' or making bargains. That kind of stuff. But he could
never quite figure out how the Hebrews got to the spot from across the sea.
He worried about that issue for a while."
"Garden of Eden, huh?" says Jack. "Wow, how long have you been here?"
"No idea, really," replies Nate. "But it has been a long time. It never
occurred to me to count years, until recently, and by then, of course,
it was too late. But I do remember when this whole place was green, so I
figure it's been thousands of years."
"So, you would be the snake that tempted Eve?" asks Jack.
"Beats me," says Nate. "Maybe. I can't remember if the first one of your
kind that I talked to was female or not, and I never got a name, but it
could have been. And I suppose she could have considered my offer to
grant requests a 'temptation', though I've rarely had refusals."
"Well, umm, how did you get here then? And why is that white pole stuck
out of the stone there?" asks Jack.
"Dad left me here. Or, I assume it was my dad. It was another snake -
much bigger than I was back then. I remember talking to him, but I don't
remember if it was in a language, or just kind of understanding what he
wanted. But one day, he brought me to this stone, told me about it, and
asked me to do something for him. I talked it over with him for a while,
then agreed. I've been here ever since."
"What is this place?" says Jack. "And what did he ask you to do?"
"Well, you see this pole here, sticking out of the stone?" The snake
loosens his coils around the tilted white pole and shows Jack where it
descends into the stone. The pole is tilted at about a forty-five degree
angle and seems to enter the stone in an eighteen inch slot cut into the
stone. Jack leans down and looks. The slot is dark and the pole goes
down into it as far as he can see in the dim light. Jack reaches out to
touch the pole, but Nate is suddenly there blocking the way.
"You can't touch that yet, Jack," says the snake.
"Why not?" asks Jack.
"I haven't explained to you what it does," replies Nate.
"Well, it kind of looks like a lever or something like that," says Jack.
"You'd push it one way and it would move in the slot."
"Yesss, that's what it is," replies Nate.
"But what does it do?" asks Jack. "End the world?"
"Oh, no," says Nate. "Nothing that drastic. It just ends humanity. I
call it 'The Lever of Doom'." For his last few words Nate had used a
deeper, gruffer, ringing voice. He tries to look serious for a few
seconds, but then gives up and grins.
Jack is initially startled by Nate's announcement, but when Nate grins
Jack laughs. "Ha-ha! You almost had me fooled for a second there. And
what does it really do?"
"Oh, it really ends humanity, like I said," smirks Nate. "I think the
voice I just used was funny, don't you?"
Nate continues to grin.
"A lever to end humanity?" asks Jack. "What in the world is that for?
Why would anyone need to end humanity?"
"Well," replies Nate, "I get the idea that maybe humanity was an
experiment. Or maybe the Big Guy thought that if humanity started going
really bad, there should be a way to end it. I'm not really sure. All I
know are the rules, and the guesses that Samuel and I had about why it's
here. I didn't think to ask back when I first got here."
"Rules? What rules?" asks Jack.
"The rules are that I can't tell anybody about it or let them touch it
unless they agree to be bound to secrecy by a snake bite. And that only
one human can be bound that way at a time. That's it," he explains.
Jack looks somewhat shocked. "You mean that I could pull the lever now?
You would allow me, a human being, to end humanity?"
" Yesss," replies Nate, "if you want to." Nate looked at Jack carefully.
"Do you think you want to end humanity?"
"Uhhh, no." says Jack, stepping a little further back from the lever.
"Why in the world would anyone want to end humanity? It'd take a
psychotic to want that! Or worse, a suicidal psychotic, because it would
kill him too."
"Yesss," replies Nate, "because he would be a human as well."
"Has anybody ever seriously considered it?" asks Jack. "Any of those
bound to secrecy, that is?"
"Why, of course, I think they've all seriously considered it at one
time or another. Being given that kind of responsibility makes you sit
down and think, or that's what I'm told. Samuel considered it several times.
He'd often get disgusted with humanity, come out here, and just hold the
lever for a while. But he never pulled it. Or you wouldn't still be
here." Nate grins some more.
Jack sits down, well back from the lever. He looks thoughtful and
puzzled at the same time. After a bit, he says, "So this makes me the
Judge of humanity? I get to choose whether they keep going or end? Me?"
"That seems to be it," agrees Nate.
"What kind of criteria do I use to decide?" ask Jack. "How and why do I
make this decision? Am I supposed to decide if they're worthy? Or
whether too many of them are bad? Or that they're going the wrong way?
Is there a set of rules for that?"
"No," replies Nate. "You pretty much just have to decide on your own.
It's up to you, however you want to decide it. I guess that you're just
supposed to know."
"But what if I get mad at someone? Or some girl dumps me and I feel
horrible? Couldn't I make a mistake? How do I know that I wouldn't screw it
up?" protests Jack.
Nate gives his kind of snake-like shrug again. "You don't. You just have
to try your best not to screw up."
Jack sits there for a while, staring off into the sunset and the desert
which is rapidly becoming dark, chewing on his fingernails.
Suddenly, he turns and looks at the snake. "Nate, was Samuel the human
who was bound to this before me?"
"Yesss," replies Nate. "He was a good guy. Talked to me a lot. Taught me
to read and brought me books. I think I still have a good pile of them
buried in the sand around here somewhere. I still miss him. He died a
few months ago."
"Sounds like he was a good guy," agrees Jack. "How did he handle this,
when you first told him. What did he do?"
"Well," says Nate, "he sat down for a while, thought about it for a bit,
and then asked me some of the same questions that you have asked me now."
"What did he ask you, if you're allowed to tell me?" asks Jack.
"He asked me about the third request," replies Nate.
"Aha!" It is his turn to grin. "And what did you tell him?"
"I told him the rules for the third request. That to get the third
request you have to agree to this whole thing. That if it ever comes to
the point that you really think that humanity should be ended, you will
come here and end it. You won't avoid it, and you won't wimp out." Nate
looks serious again. "And you'll be bound to do it, too,"
"Hmm." Jack says, looking out into the darkness for a while.
Nate watches him, waiting.
"Nate," continues Jack, quietly. "What did Samuel ask for with his third
request?"
Nate sounds like he's grinning again as he replies, also quietly,
"Wisdom, Jack. He asked for wisdom. As much as I was able to give him."
"Oh," says Jack, suddenly standing up and facing away from Nate, "give
it to me, then."
Nate looks at Jack's backside. "Give you what, Jack?"
"Give me that wisdom. The same stuff that Samuel asked for. If it helped
him, maybe it'll help me too." Jack turns his head back to look back
over his shoulder at Nate. "It did help him, right?"
"He said it did," replies Nate. "But he seemed a little quieter
afterward. He looked like he had a lot to think about.
"Well, yeah, I can see that," says Jack. "So, give it to me." He turns
his face away from the snake again, bent over slightly and tensed up.
Nate watches Jack tense up with a little exasperation. If he bit Jack
now, Jack would likely jump out of his skin and maybe hurt them both.
"You remember that you'll be bound to destroy humanity if it looks like
it needs it, right Jack?" asks Nate, shifting position.
"Yeah, yeah, I got that," replies Jack, eyes squeezed tightly shut and
body tense, not noticing the change in direction of Nate's voice.
"And," continues Nate, from his new position, "do you remember that
you'll turn bright purple, and grow big horns and extra eyes?"
"Yeah, yeah...Hey, wait a minute!" says Jack, opening his eyes,
straightening up and turning around. "Purple?!" He doesn't see Nate
there. With the moonlight Jack could see that the lever extended up from
its slot in the rock without the snake wrapped around it.
Jack hears, from behind him, Nate's "Ha, ha, just kidding!" right before
he feels the now familiar piercing pain, this time in his other buttock.
Jack sits on the edge of the dark stone in the rapidly cooling air, his
feet extending out into the sand. He stares out into the darkness,
listening to the wind stir the sand, occasionally rubbing his buttock
where he's been recently bitten.
The snake, who had left for a while, has come back with a desert-rodent-shaped
bulge somewhere in his middle, and is now wrapping himself back around the lever,
his tongue flicking out into the desert's night air, the only sign that he is still awake.
Occasionally Jack, with his toes absentmindedly digging in the sand
while he thinks, asks Nate a question without turning around.
"Nate, do accidents count?"
The snake lifts his head a little bit. "What do you mean, Jack?"
Jack tilts his head back like he is looking at the stars. "You know,
accidents. If I accidentally fall on the lever, without meaning to, does
that still wipe out humanity?"
"Yesss, I'm pretty sure it does, Jack. I would suggest you be careful
about that if you start feeling wobbly," smirks Nate with some amusement.
A little while later Jack asks, "Does it have to be me that pulls the lever?"
"That's the rule. Nobody else can pull it," answers Nate.
"No," Jack shakes his head, "I meant does it have to be my hand? Could I
pull the lever with a rope tied around it? Or push it with a stick? Or
throw a stone?"
"Yesss, those should work," replies Nate. "Though I'm not sure how
complicated you could get. Samuel thought about trying to build some
kind of remote control for it once, but gave it up. Everything he'd
build would be gone by the next sunrise, if it was touching the stone or
above it. I told him that in the past others that had been bound had
tried to bury the lever so they wouldn't be tempted to pull it, but
every time the stones or sand or whatever had disappeared."
"Whoa," says Jack, "Cool." He leans back until only his elbows keep him
off of the stone and looks up into the sky.
"Nate, how long did Samuel live? One of his wishes was for health,
right?" asks Jack.
"Yesss," replies Nate, "it was. He lived for one-hundred-sixty-seven years."
"Wow, one-hundred-sixty-seven years. That's almost one-hundred-forty
more years than I'll live, if I live as long as he did. Do you know what
he died of, Nate?"
"He died of getting tired of living," Nate said, sounding somewhat sad.
Jack turns his head to look at Nate in the starlight.
The snake looks back. "Samuel knew he wasn't going to be able to stay in
society. He figures that they'd eventually see him still alive and start
questioning it, so he decided that he'd have to disappear after a while.
He faked his death once, but changed his mind - he decided it was too
early and he could stay for a little longer. He wasn't very fond of
mankind, but he liked the attention. Most of the time, anyway.
"His daughter and then his wife dying almost did him in though. He
didn't stay in society much longer after that. He eventually came out
here to spend time talking to me and thinking about pulling the lever. A
few months ago he told me he'd had enough. It was his time."
"And then he just died?" asks Jack.
Nate shakes his head a little. "That's when he made his fourth request,
Jack. There's only one thing you can ask for with the fourth request:
the last bite.
After a little while, Nate continues, "He told me that he was tired,
that it was his time. He reassured me that someone new would show up
soon, like they always had."
After another pause, Nate finishes, "Samuel's body disappeared off the
stone with the next sunrise."
Jack lays back down and looks at the sky, leaving Nate alone with his
memories. It is a long time until Jack's breathing evens out into sleep.
Jack wakes with the sunrise the next morning. He feels a little chilled
with the morning desert air, but overall is feeling pretty good. Well,
except that his stomach is grumbling and he isn't willing to eat raw
desert rat.
So, after getting directions to town from Nate, making sure he knows how
to get back, and reassuring Nate that he'd be back soon, Jack starts the
long walk back to town. With his new health and Nate's good directions, he
makes it back easily.
Jack catches a bus back to the city, and shows up for work the next day,
little worse for the wear, and with a story about getting lost in the
desert and walking back out. Within a couple of days Jack has talked a
friend with a tow truck into going back out into the desert with him to
fetch his SUV. They find it after a couple of hours of searching and tow
it back without incident. Jack is careful not to even look in the
direction of Nate's lever, though their path back doesn't come within
sight of it.
Before the next weekend, Jack has gone to a couple of stores, including
a book store, and has gotten his SUV back from the mechanic, with a
warning to avoid any more joyriding in the desert. On Saturday, he heads
back to see the snake.
Jack parks a little way out of the small town near Nate, loads up his
new backpack with camping gear, a few snacks, and the things he is
bringing for the snake, and then starts walking again. He figures that
walking will leave the least trail, and he knows that while not many
people camp in the desert, it isn't unheard of, and shouldn't really
raise suspicions.
Jack had picked out more books for Nate - recent books and magazines. Some
things that would catch Nate up with what was happening in the world,
others that were just good books to read. So, he spends the weekend with
Nate, and then heads out again, telling him that he'll be back again
soon, but that he has things to do first.
Over four months later, Jack is back to see Nate again. This time he
brings a laptop with him - a specially modified laptop. It has a solar
recharger, special filters and seals to keep out the sand, a satellite
link-up, and a specially adapted keyboard which Jack hopes that a
fifteen-foot rattlesnake would be able to handle. And, it has been
hacked to not give out its location to the satellite.
After that, Jack could e-mail Nate to keep in touch, but still visits
him fairly regularly - at least once or twice a year, bringing software
and a few books.
After the first year, Jack quits his job. For some reason, with the
wisdom he'd been given, and the knowledge that he could live for over
one-hundred-fifty years, working a nine-to-five job for someone else
doesn't seem that worthwhile any more. Jack goes back to school.
Eventually, he starts writing. Perhaps because of the wisdom, or perhaps
because of his new perspective, he writes well. People like what he
writes, and he becomes well known. After a time, he buys another brighter SUV and
starts traveling around the country for book signings and readings.
But, he still remembers to drop by and visit Nate occasionally.
On one of the visits, Nate seems quieter than usual. Not that Nate has
been a fountain of joy lately. His best guess was that Nate was still
missing Samuel, and though Jack had tried, he still hadn't been able to
replace Samuel in Nate's eyes. Nate had been getting quieter each visit.
But on this visit Nate doesn't even speak when Jack walks up to the
lever. He nods at Jack, and then goes back to staring into the desert.
Respecting Nate's silence, Jack sits down and waits.
After a few minutes, Nate speaks. "Jack, I have someone to introduce you
to."
Jack looks surprised. "Someone to introduce me to?" He looks around, and
then looks carefully back at Nate. "This something to do with the Big Guy?
"The Big Guy? No, no," replies Nate. "This is more personal. I want you
to meet my son."
Nate looks over at the nearest sand dune. "Sammy!"
Jack watches as a four foot long desert rattlesnake crawls from behind
the sandy dune and up on the base of the lever.
"Yo, Jack," says the new, much smaller snake.
"Hi, Sammy," says Jack. He looks at Nate. "Named after Samuel, I assume?"
Nate nods. "Jack, I've got a favor to ask you. Could you show Sammy
around for me?" Nate unwraps himself from the lever and slithers over to
the edge of the stone and looks across the sands. "When Samuel first
told me about the world, and brought me books and pictures, I wished
that I could go see it. I wanted to see the great forests, the canyons,
the cities, even the other deserts, to see if they felt and smelled the
same. I want my son to have that chance - to see the world. Before he
becomes bound here like I have been.
"He's seen it in pictures, on the computer that you brought me. But I
hear that it's not the same. That being there is somehow different. I
want him to have that. Think you can do that for me, Jack?"
Jack nods. This is obviously very important to Nate, so he doesn't even
joke about taking a talking rattlesnake out to see the world. "Yeah, I
can do that for you, Nate. Is that all you wish for?" But, Jack could
sense that there was something more.
Nate looks at Sammy. Sammy looks back at Nate for a second and then
says, "Oh, yeah. Umm, I've gotta go pack. Back in a little bit Jack.
Nice to meet ya!" Sammy slithers back over the dune and out of sight.
Nate watches Sammy disappear and then looks back at Jack. "Jack, this is
my first son. My first offspring through all those years. You don't even
want to know what it took for me to find a mate." Nate giggles to himself.
"But anyway, I had a son for a reason. I'm tired. I'm ready for it to be
over. I needed a replacement."
Jack considers this for a minute. "So, you're ready to come see the
world, and you wanted him to watch the lever while you were gone?"
Nate shakes his head. "No, Jack - you're a better guesser than that.
You've already figured out - I'm bound here - there's only one way for
me to leave here. And I'm ready. It's my time to die."
Jack looks more closely at Nate. He could tell Nate had thought
carefully about this - probably for quite a while. Jack has trouble
imagining what it would be like to be as old as Nate, but Jack could
already tell that in another hundred or two hundred years, he might be
getting tired of life himself. Jack could understand Samuel's decision,
and now Nate's. So, all Jack says is, "What would you like me to do?"
Nate says, "Thanks, Jack. I only want two things. One - show Sammy
around the world - let him get his fill of it, until he's ready to come
back here and take over. Two - give me the fourth request.
"I can't just decide to die, not any more than you can. I won't even die
of old age like you eventually will, even though it'll be a long time
from now. I need to be killed. Once Sammy is back here, ready to take over,
I'll be able to die. All I need is for you to kill me.
"I've even thought about how. Poisons and other drugs won't work on me.
And I've seen pictures of snakes that were shot - some of them live for
days, so that's out too. So, I want you to bring back a sword.
Nate turns away to look back to the dune that Sammy had gone behind.
"I'd say an axe, but that's somewhat undignified - putting my head on
the ground or a chopping block like that. No, I'd like a sword. A
time-honored way of going out. A dignified way to die. And, most
importantly, it should work, even on me.
"Are you willing to do that for me?" Nate turns back to look at Jack.
"Sure, Nate," replies Jack solemnly, "I think I can handle that."
Nate nods. "Good!" He turns back toward the dune and shouts, "Sammy!
Jack's about ready to leave!" Then quietly, "Thanks again."
Jack doesn't have anything to say to that, so he waits for Sammy to make
it back to the lever, nods to him, nods a final time to Nate, and then
heads into the desert with Sammy following. Over the next few years
Sammy and Jack keep in touch with Nate through e-mail as they go about
their adventures. They make a goal of visiting every country in the
world, and do a respectable job of it. Sammy has a natural gift for
languages, as Jack expected he would, and even ends up acting as a
translator for Jack in a few of the countries, even though Jack manages
to keep the talking rattlesnake hidden, and by the time they are nearing
the end of their tour of countries, Sammy has only been spotted a few
times. While there were several people that had seen enough to startle
them greatly, nobody had enough evidence to prove anything, and while a
few wild rumors and stories followed Jack and Sammy around, nothing ever
hit the news or the public in general.
When they finish the tour of countries, Jack suggests that they try some
undersea diving. They do. And spelunking. They do that too. Sammy
finally draws the line at visiting Antarctica. He'd come to realize that
Jack was stalling. After talking to his Dad about it over e-mail, he had
figured out that Jack probably didn't want to have to kill Nate. Nate
told Sammy that humans could be squeamish about killing friends and
acquaintances.
So, Sammy eventually put his tail down (as he didn't have a foot) and
told Jack that it was time - he was ready to go back and take up his
duties from his dad. Jack delays it a little more by insisting that they
go back to Japan to buy an appropriate sword. He even stretches it a
little more by getting lessons in how to use the sword. But, eventually,
he'd learned as much as he was likely to without dedicating his life to it,
and was definitely competent enough to take the head off of a snake. It was
time to head back.
When they got back to the US, Jack got the SUV out of storage where
he and Sammy had left it after their tour of France and forty-eight states, he
loaded up Sammy and the sword, and they headed for the desert.
When they got to the small town that Jack had been trying to find those
years ago when he'd met Nate, he was in a funk. He didn't really feel
like walking all of the way out there. Not only that, but he'd forgotten
to figure the travel time correctly, and it was late afternoon. They'd
either have to spend the night in town and walk out tomorrow, or hike in
the dark.
As Jack was afraid that if he waited another night he might lose his
resolve, he decided that he'd go ahead and drive the SUV out there. It
was only going to be this once, and he would go back and cover his
tracks afterward. They ought to be able to make it out there by
nightfall if they drove, and then they could get it over with tonight.
Jack told Sammy to e-mail Nate that they were coming as he drove out of
sight of the town on the road. They then pulled off the road and headed
out into the desert.
Everything went well, until they got to the sand dunes. Jack had been
nursing the SUV along the whole time, over the rocks, through the creek
beds, revving the engine the few times they almost got stuck. When they
came to the dunes, Jack didn't really think about it, he just
downshifted and headed up the first one. By the third dune, Jack started
to regret that he'd decided to try driving on the sand. The SUV was
beginning to fishtail and lose traction. Jack was having to inch it up
each dune slowly and was trying to keep from losing control each time
they came over the top and slid down the other side. Sammy had come up
to sit in the passenger seat, coiled up and laughing at Jack's driving.
As they come over the top of the fourth sand dune, the biggest one yet,
Jack notes that this is the final dune - the stone, the lever, and
somewhere down below, Nate, await him. Jack puts on the brakes, but he's
gone a little too far. As the SUV starts sliding down the other side of the
hill, Jack tries turning the wheel, but he doesn't have enough traction. He
pumps the brakes with no response. They start sliding down the hill,
faster and faster.
Jack feels a shock go through him as he suddenly realizes that they are
heading straight for the lever. He looks down - the SUV is directly on
course for it. If Jack doesn't do something, the SUV will hit it. He
knows he is about to end humanity.
Jack steers more frantically, trying to get traction. This still isn't
working. The dune is too steep, and the sand too loose. In a split
second, Jack realizes that his only chance would be once he hits the
stone around the lever - he should have traction on the stone for just a
second before he hits the lever - he wouldn't have time to stop, but he
should be able to steer away.
Jack takes a better grip on the steering wheel and tries to turn the SUV
a little bit - every little bit would help. He'd have to time his turn
just right.
The SUV gets to the bottom of the dune, sliding at an amazing speed in
the sand. Just before they reach the stone Jack looks across it to check
that they're still heading for the lever. They are. But he notices
something else that he hadn't seen from the top of the dune. Nate is no
longer wrapped around the lever. He is off to the side of the lever, but
still on the stone, waiting for them. The problem is, he is waiting on
the same side of the lever that Jack has picked to steer towards to
avoid the lever. The SUV is already starting to drift that way a little
in its mad rush across the sand and there is no way that Jack is going
to be able to go around the lever to the other side.
Jack has an instant of realization. He is either going to have to hit
the lever, or run over Nate. He glances over at Sammy and sees that he
realizes the same thing.
Jack takes a firmer grip on the steering wheel as the SUV runs up on the
stone.
Shouting to Sammy, as he pulls his steering wheel, "BETTER NATE THAN
LEVER," he runs over the snake.
THE END
PLEASE READ:
This joke was also used as a personality profile test...
It was the subject of a recent Educational Psychology Master's Thesis,
soon to be published, which investigated the way that someone responds
to a story such as this correlates to certain personality traits.
The research confirmed a statistically significant correlation which
strongly suggests a dependably predictive positive relationship between
how a person responds to this thesis and certain aspects of his or her
psychological profile. Thus, it is called the Personality Profile
Assessment Test Hypothesis.
While the actual results looked at several complex factors, and depended
heavily on questionnaires filled out by volunteers upon completion of
their experience, I will simplify the results by discussing three main
groups and their profiles. While these profiles may not be exactly
fitting of each person within each group, they do strongly suggest a
statistically significant likelihood of profile similarity.
Eleven percent of those who read this thesis take their time, enjoying
the joke as they read it, enjoying the build up to the punch line, and
even if the punch line itself wasn't particularly humorous, they tended
to enjoy the process.
Fifty-six percent begin, read a few lines, then scroll down to find the
punch line, either within a short period of time-- usually twenty
seconds or less. The vast majority of this group choose not to read the
bulk of the joke.
Thirty-three percent read at least one-third of the joke, with the
intention of reading it all, but then begin to question their decision
and the investment of time they are making. They go back and forth
between deciding to continuing or to skip to the end (this vacillating
back and forth may be unconscious at the time, and happen in a matter of
moments). The vast majority in this group give up before finishing half
of the joke, and scroll to the end.
People in the first group, who read the entire thesis, tend to enjoy
life and take their time as they move towards a goal. When traveling,
they tend to thoroughly enjoy the process, and are not uptight or
stressed about single-mindedly getting to their destination. They also
tend to be very attentive, patient and long-lasting lovers, and enjoy
intimacy and physical connectivity.
Those belonging to the second group, those who scroll to the end before
reading more than a few sentences of the joke, tend to avoid surprises
and the unknown. They prefer having a regular schedule and not stepping
out of their routine. They tend to be efficient in work, but are often
lacking in enjoyment, spontaneity and passion. They tend to be less
patient and more interested in the destination than the journey. When on
a trip, they tend to focus on getting where they are going, rather than
enjoying the process. During intimacy, they tend to not be able to enjoy
it unless they are certain it will be taken to completion. The idea of
just "playing around" a while, engaging in physical intimacy without the
promise of full completion is, rather than simply enjoyable and
connective, considered to be "cruel" and "teasing" and is met with
resentment. This group's ability to enjoy depends largely on their need
to know what is going to happen. They tend to be more self-focused
lovers, and tend not to last very long in satisfying the other partner
if their own satisfaction has happened or is within easy reach.
The third group, who decided not to read the entire joke after reading a
third or more of it, tend to be commitment-phobic and lack the ability
to move forward to completion when things become challenging. They are
often procrastinators and frequently give up on tasks when they become
more difficult. They tend to prefer to have big dreams than act on them
in the challenging world. A significantly higher percentage of this
group had Cesarean births, and may not have had the benefit of that
early experience of struggle and effort being rewarded with
accomplishment. This group tends to not take big vacations which would
take more effort to plan and implement, and tends to stay close to home
or even stay home during holidays or time off. Promotions and career
moves which are within reach but still require some effort and focus are
frequently not fully tried for, although the perception will be they
were passed up. In intimate relationships, this group tends to start
out romantic and passionate, but that quickly fades and is replaced by
lackadaisicalness and indifference, characterized in part by a sense of
feeling it is not worth the effort to continue having a passionate,
energized and complete experience during intimacy. There is a tendency
to "peter out" both in intimacy and in other aspects of life, and to
take the easier road, even if it leads to a less fulfilling life.
* * * *
Disclaimer: This summary of the results is not intended in any
way to offer advice or therapy, nor is it intended to infer anything
about whether anyone reading this does or does not fit the personality
profiles described.
* * * *
This ends the longest joke in the world (original length: forty meters).
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