To make up for my compelte lack of updates, Here's a stoty I wrote. Steal it and I will hunt you down and eat you
For Want of a Tie
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost; For want of the shoe, the horse was lost; For want of the horse, the rider was lost; For want of the rider, the battle was lost; For want of the battle, the kingdom was lost, And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
-Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac
The Scientists gathered around, wearing lab coats over their hundred dollar suits and ties, which was uncomfortable and kind of hot, but it looks nice, which was the point. They had spent months of effort to break back the laws of nature itself and goddamn it, they were going to do it in style. The machine the had spent all this time working on was resting humbly in the center of the room, a gleaming box that went up to around your kneecaps, had a slightly lower platform in the center of it, and also possessed four tall electro-rods around it (the platform, that is). Half this stuff wasn’t necessary, especially the hot rod-esq. Flames, which were green, but they came under budget and it was either unnecessary cosmetics or several tons of spray cheese, and after Bob’s diabetic seizer they weren’t going to that again. It had one, singular all-important (or at least ridiculously cool) purpose.
To travel to Parallel Universes (DA-DA-DAAAAAA!)
I told it was a cool Purpose.
Now, you might by saying “Parallel Universes? Isn’t the stuff of bad science fiction?” Well, you’d be wrong. This is good science fiction, if you don’t mind me saying. The Poor Bastard that they gotten to take the maiden voyage of the shiny-Death-Box was an All-American hero, except he wasn’t American, and was thrown out of the Cub scouts for Throwing a 5-year old boy at an angry bear and running into a nearby cave. He was found in hours latter in the fertile position, after the search parties followed the trail of tears, piss, and menstruation blood. (Nobody wanted to ask about the last one).
He slowly, carefully, stepped onto the machine, and then onto to platform with in. One of the scientists hit a big red button labeled “Start” (coincidently, this was the same scientists who designed the control panel. He was a man that took things very literally).
The Electro-rods started spinning faster…and faster…till they were just a sold blur. And then they spun faster, just to show off. Lighting circled around the machine like the rings of Saturn. Critical mass was about to be reached. The rings of electricity reached their epoch, becoming a blazing light, a shinning beacon of science, a lighthouse of the impossible made possible, the Olympic torch of sheer awesomeness! And then, it slowed down…and stopped… the Scientists huddled closer to machine, to see what had come thru…
It was that poor dumb test pilot, seemingly unchanged.
The Scientists had prepared for this. They reasoned that their counterparts on the nearest parallel universe would try the same experiment as them, and use the same poor bastard, or his counterpart, at any rate. They quickly began bombarding him with questions:
“Who was the first president?
“Um, George Washington.”
“Who won World war II?”
“Ah, the allies…”
“What time traveling 80s scientist was named after a famous Play write?”
“Uh, Sam Beckett…?”
And so on, for hours. They had run out of questions, and were about to grudgingly admit that the machine had done nothing more than create an impressive light show and sell it to the nearest carnival, when the test pilot said to one of the scientist, “Weren’t you wearing a blue tie earlier?” The scientist in question (Robert) was wearing a hideous green tie. “No” He replied, “I’ve been wearing this all day…” The other scientist’s jaws dropped. Finally, one said, “Wait, so the only, and repeat, only difference between our universe and yours, is that, that, Rob wore that filthy, disgusting tie to work today!?!”
“Filthy…?” Rob replied, looking down indignantly at his horrible tie, frowning.
“Oh, for god’s sake Rob…”
“But you said you liked it…”
“Stop being such a baby “Said the head scientist. Then he turned to others, sighed, and said, dejectedly “Come on boys, lets send this poor bastard back home.” He sat down, put his hand on his forehead, sighed again, and added “Seriously, a green tie, that’s the only difference?”
But, sometimes, small differences are all that are needed.
Because of his colleague’s reactions to his tie, Rob went to the Landry mat two days earlier, he literally ran into the women who would become of his wife. A few years latter, they would have a son, who would even latter, be orphaned when his mother died of cancer, and his father was killed in a classified incident involving a bus full of female Marlin Brando impersonators, a pack of rampaging bull squirrels, and a few galleons of lemon-flavored lubricate. Inspired by their memories, the son (let’s call him “Carl”) vowed to live a life of scientific advancement, and rampant hedonism (that last one was more of the result of a lack of supervision than anything else.) When he reached adulthood, he developed and tested the first faster-than-light speed spaceship, and made first contact with an alien species (but more importantly, got kicked out the red light district in Amsterdam. That takes talent). The Aliens had evolved into physical perfection, which was ironically killing them, as their immune systems attack even helpful bacteria. However, their salvation lay deep inside Carl’s loins, as one the many STDs he carried as powerful enough to knock down the alien’s immune systems to tolerable levels. Their species saved, the aliens joined forces with mankind and created a utopian empire that would make Gene Rodenberry shit himself.
However, in the universe were Rob wore the nice blue tie to work, Carl was never born, and humankind remained Erath bound, until most of the species was destroyed in the nuclear exchange following a series of drunken phone sex calls by the American president to all other nuclear-powered nations.
The radioactive planet remained nearly uninhibited, until the last survivors of alien species (separate from the other unnamed alien species) found it. After countless of centuries of searching for a home, generations of hoping, wishing, and seeking across the endless stars had come to an end. But the second they stepped out of their ship, into the bright, shinning light of their new world, ready to start anew, ready to recognize their dreams, and rebuild their once glorious race, they were attacked by the mutated remains of mankind, vicious creatures, and the descendants of a family who prided themselves on embracing ever hill-billy stereotype imaginable (they were saved from the nuclear fires by being locked in the vault backstage at the Jerry Springer show). The sub-humans quickly tour apart the aliens, and latter skinned to make incest mats (the less said the better).
And so, in one universe, specie was saved and mankind ascended to god-like paragons, and in another, specie destroyed and mankind reduced to savagery and inaccurate southern stereotypes.
The moral of this story is this: EVERY MINOR THING YOU DO WILL HAVE ENOMOUS CONSQUENCES ON THE FUTURE. BY PUTTING ON YOUR RIGHT (or left) SOCK ON FRIST THIS MORONING YOU’VE PROABLY SIGNED THE DEATH WARRANT OF THE HUMAN RACE. YOU MAY NOW START FREAKING OUT.
