Inventions

One day, a country bee, having gathered and pollenated his part of the countryside to anybody's satisfaction, decided to take a trip to see his cousin in the city. The journey was merely eight hours and then he was at the hive of his cousin the city bee.

The city bee took the country bee on a tour. The noise and stink made the country bee nauseous, and he was flummoxed at how few plants were available to wander about on. A parkette was about the biggest plot of land.

"How do you do it? How do you manage a hive with so little resources?"

"We have smaller hives, mostly made up of one bedrooms and such. So we're all busy bees here!"

The country bee invited his cousin the city bee to pay a return visit, which took place three weeks later. The city bee was amazed at the plenty to be had in his cousin's domain. There were so many plants to be nuzzled it was insane.

"How do you do it? Don't you run out of fingers to count on?"

"We have an effective land management committee."

The city bee went back to the city.

Nothing changed.

 

*

 

I drove up the hill through the snow, following the snowmobile tracks, which had been freshly laid the night before. Every narrative consists of a finite number of factual claims. I knew she was up in the cabin to which I was heading and I knew who she was there with. The arrangement of the factual claims creates the texture of the narrative. I stopped my machine once the cabin had come into sight and I strapped on my snowshoes. Each factual claim ties together any number of other factual claims made previously or eventually. In the darkness I got close to the lighted cabin, illuminated on the upper floor so I saw. Since the factual claims already exist in any narrative before it is opened, it is an artifice created by the reader and only the reader. I scaled a familiar tree to get atop the shed some twenty feet from the cabin. This is why every reading of any text is different to some degree from every other reading. I looked into the cabin. She looked to be alone. The text also spills out from its binding. I waited up there on the shed as daylight slowly came.

 

*

 

I was born on the morning of the 25th of February, 1965, during the worst snowstorm of the year. The doctor barely made it to the hospital in time. About six months later we upped house and move to Quebec for three years. Of that period I only remember the staircase of the house, though this may be a false memory educed by photography. I remember seeing for the first time the Oshawa house into which we would move; it was a new house among new houses, and there were no fences in the back yards. After moving there we purchased a dog we named Ralph who got too strong for chains being, as it turned out, part-wolf, so we donated him to a military base. (I disbelieved this story for some years, but I now believe it's true.) Both my parents worked, so we had a part-time house-keeper whose son I played with. We were both four years old. Kindergarten was not frightening to me at all. I got along well with everyone, despite my lisp, which got fixed later, and I've been told I had some trouble sitting still. Some time passed [ENTIRELY RIDICULOUS RISIBLE STORY CONTINUES ELSEWHERE]

 

*

 

He had plenty of time to think, and to look around, as he fell. Below him he could see his two enemies also falling, virtually hand in hand as they fell. They had no choice but to hit the ground before he did, and how sweet it would be to see their brains busted out on the rocky shore, though that also meant he would see the fait that awaited him not ten seconds after. When they'd been on top of the cliff, when he'd shoved them off, and when he'd leaned over to see and laugh at their falling bodies, he never meant to lose his footing. At that moment he danced around comically, windmilling his arms all over the place, before his final plunge. But now, falling naturally, his didn't have the breath to laugh. My pride cameth before my fall, I can say that again, or rather I can't, because I don't have time. His enemies hit the rocks and smashed open, so far bloodlessly, and he doubted they'd bleed before he joined them in less than ten seconds. He'd foolishly lost his great gamble, and now he had naught to do but be broken on rocks.

 

*

 

Dawn arrived, and still I was on the shed, looking. Is it all just a matter of hiding secrets in plain sight, like purloined letters? I had finally become doubtful concerning my senses, and wondering if my whole theory was based on nothing. Are the secrets already there, waiting to be discovered, or are they created on an ad hoc basis as the story proceeds? Finally, I dropped from the room of the shed to more closely examine the snowmobile track I had followed. Is there a teleology to a story, and is there a teleology to lives, yours and mine? I put on my reasoning camp and examined the footprints leading from the machine. Has intelligence developed with the sole purpose of understanding the narrative of the universe with all its secrets? That's when I noticed there was a single set of footprints leading to the cabin. Is mathematics itself an invention or a discovery? I followed the footprints and within fifteen seconds I was standing at the cabin door. Invention, or discovery? I knocked. Discovery, or invention? She opened the door and said, "Finally. I've been waiting all night." Invention? She said, "Didn't you get my message?" Discovery?