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Wednesday 21 January 2009

Can you make head or tail of this?


There once was a man. This man was walking in a valley. It is not our place to be asking why. While walking he stumbled upon a stone. He was clumsy that way. Under the stone he found a rolled up piece of paper tied with twine. He unrolled the paper and read:

Go to the river bank.

The man was curious and so kept walking towards the sound of rushing water, until he came to a rapidly flowing river. He was at the bank. What next? On the other side of the river he saw a twinkling light. He decided to try and cross the river. He could swim but the river current was very strong. He feared death by pounding, slicing, and drowning, possibly all at once.

But the light was shiny and the man was but a man with a weakness for shiny things. So in he went.

The water was very cold. He was pulled under many times. He tried swimming deeper to see if the current was weaker. It was not. Just as he was about to give up hope and dedicate his body as fish food, something hooked his arm and he was dragged to the surface.

The next thing he knew he was on the river bank. Somehow he had been pulled across. He looked around. There was a hut off in the distance.

He got up and made his way there, tripping frequently on stones. They had no messages for him, the uncooperative sods.

When he got to the hut he opened the door and inside there was an old man and that man was bald and the old man said:

You have come so far but for a twinkling that is a mere reflection of light. Is that which drives man to strive but an illusion, a trick of the light?

The other man replied:

You pulled me out of the river just to ask me that?

The old man said:

I need the answer.

The wet, valley traversing man said:

What the fuck dude. Just give me the shiny thing and quit asking all these fucking questions. I have to get back to my car. My wife will be freaking out. This is the longest piss break ever.

And the old man said:

Thanks. Just wanted to clear that up.

Then he pressed a button.




What the hell does all this mean? You tell me.

19 comments:

Unknown said...

Uh....(scratching head)...you tell ME! Where did you get that? Or did you write it?

6000 said...

It means you've been sniffing the ethidium bromide again, doesn't it?

Anonymous said...

I'm making an assumption here... so vergewe. I think the story is asking what is the meaning of life. Seriously. Like asking is there an actual point to all the things you are looking for or is it just something we do for no apparent reason. It's those weird questions on a philosphy paper.

Janine / Being Brazen said...

ummmmmm.....i dont know??

What do you think it means??

Tamara said...

Po... have you been drinking?

Louisa said...

It makes no sense to me, sorry. Maybe it was someone's dream?

po said...

Wah guys, what it means is that I got a serious case of bloggers block for the first time ever and panicked and thought that I should rather write something than nothing, so I wrote this crap.

But Paula if I were to guess what it was about I would have said something similar to you, so full marks for you analysis!!!

Dash said...

Don't you get enough entertainment from creating gigantic world destroying monsters in your lab? Why are you tormenting our brains like this? Here's my take:

Man is always after answers to things he doesn't understand. And even when they are presented to him, he isn't prepared to accept or understand them. That, and the answer is always a lot simpler than you expect it to be.

Wait, I just read Paula's..I like that too.

Anonymous said...

Yay I got full marks!!! :D Thank you Po and Dash :D

6000 said...

Meh - Paula and Dash may have been close, but I think your writing was certainly inspired by lab chemicals interollating with your DNA.

EtBr.

mylifescape said...

i think that sometimes we try to find the answers and we over analyze things. sometimes we must accept what we have as it is. be grateful for what you have (wife in car) rather than going in search of things that seem interesting and exciting and shiny, because when you get to it eventually you realise that what you want is what you've always had.

gosh, now I'M rambling...

seamstress said...

Man wants to piss...he walks into alley way to piss and gets mugged..but the mugger knocks him really hard on the head for good measure...he loses consiousness and imagined this whole story????

Just messing :)

Nice blog..

Anonymous said...

Makes you wonder... what's it all about really?

Personally, I think that we're so focused on that shiny light that we forget to enjoy the trip down the river. As my biggest inspiration, Dan Eldon put it, life is the journey, not the destination.

Nice post Po, love the button at the end!!

Medio Pomelo said...

Po, if this what it's like for you to have a writer's block then you cannot complain!!! :) Great writing, thought-provoking for sure!

I think the young man got stoned and the police caught him. The policeman was a curious dude who had never tried any illegal substances and was looking for some answers. But at the end of the day he had to put him in handcuffs just the same.

po said...

dash: nice one, nice one. I wouldnt have thought of that.

6000: you are totally correct. I sucked this shit out in a state of panic or mutation, not sure which. How do you think I became a seamonkey in the first place?

mylifescape: that is deep. You guys should be in literature classes!

po said...

seamstress: I like. It is all hallucination. Much like I was when I wrote it.

Rox: yeah maybe I watched too much Lost :) I like your interpretation though. It is so cool how everyone came up with different ideas! One big blogging brainstorm.

medio pomelo: now that one I would never have thought of. It sounds like it could be a movie.

Dash said...

maybe we could get a team blog going - writing deep and philosophical garbage?

mylifescape said...

lol... joburg has made me deeper hey! scary stuff! lol.... have a super week xxx

po said...

Dash: but your analyses are remarkably astute for "garbage". I like the idea of a blogging think tank though!

Definelife: I have never been to joburg much. Maybe if I visit its deepening effects will rub off on me!