KNOWLEDGE
By Craig A. Israel
(c) February 2002
Gordon inadvertently discovered the secret of the universe one morning. He was drinking a double tall low-fat latte with nutmeg sprinkled on top at Starbucks as he waited for his bus (the #11 Cedar cross-town). Doodling on a napkin he drew a mustache and goatee on the Starbucks lady, then mischievously gave her cleavage before blushing slightly and turning the napkin over. He wrote his name, turning the O's into eyes, then absently drew twelve intersecting lines. Without fully intending to he diagramed the Perfect Theorem that seamlessly combined quantum mechanics, parallel universes, a resolution to the wave-particle duality of matter, black holes and - in an inspired move that had confounded scientists and theologians for centuries - he had added a twelfth vector that represented God (as a non-divisible constant integer in the entire equation). Having thus drawn an impossible representation of endless dimensions within a three-dimensional space, his mind was flooded with ultimate knowledge. Laid bare before him were the secrets of life, death, faster-than-light travel, and where the matching sock goes when you do laundry.
Pondering his newfound omnipresence, Gordon spent the morning cold-calling mutual fund prospects at the telemarketing firm where he worked. During his morning break he repeatedly tried calling the American Cancer Society with the cure for cancer. He was put on hold several times before finally being transferred to a research assistant, who reluctantly took his name and number and said he'd call back "soon." Later, he was on hold with the World Health Organization to explain how simple it would be to create a universal vaccination for all infectious diseases when he noticed Mr. Cooper, his boss, glaring at him from his glass-enclosed office. Mr. Cooper didn't like people making personal calls on the company lines, so Gordon hung up and decided to try again later.
At lunch, he took out the napkin and looked again at the Perfect Theorem. He realized that (since time and space were herein shown to not be constants, but rather variables that could be manipulated) it would be a simple matter to work himself into the equation. He wrote "me" in the center of the diagram, underlining it for effect, and was transformed into the most powerful being in all creation.
After becoming omnipotent, his first action (for which he would feel guilty about later) was to extend his lunch by thirty minutes. It gave him more time to work on the newspaper crossword puzzle and read an interesting article on apple farming. He noticed another article concerning the dangerously high levels of mercury in a neighboring city's water supply and with a thought detoxified the reservoir. Satisfied with himself, and feeling vindicated for the long lunch, he returned to work.
The afternoon's leads had dried up, allowing him to spend a little more time fixing the hole in the ozone layer, eradicating tooth decay, and improving the flavor of liver.
By the end of the day he had stabilized the European economic market, ended world hunger, and made significant steps toward global disarmament. He also cured Mr. Cooper's hemorrhoids, which Gordon hoped would result in him being a little nicer around the office.
The next morning his alarm went off at 6 am, and he showered and dressed as normal. He was a little alarmed when by 7:30 the sun hadn't begun to rise, then realized that was now his job. While correcting this oversight, he missed his bus.
In-between trying to make the morning quota of out-bound calls, he corrected the events of the pervious night. Apparently a dream he had had in which his eighth-grade homeroom teacher (the horrible Mr. Klinger) grew to enormous size and trampled a goodly portion of downtown Tokyo was more than just a dream. He spent the majority of his morning repairing the collateral damage, raising the dead, and erasing all memory of the incident from the minds of the four million, eight hundred and twenty-six people who had seen it directly. Later, he would have to skip lunch entirely to deal with the more than 100 million people that had seen Mr. Klinger eat a monorail via live television broadcasts.
That afternoon he was psychically assaulted by the combined negative emotions of dentists, world military leaders, and those that enjoyed the way liver used to taste. He briefly made them all disappear, but realizing that was grossly unfair, he simply turned them all into cab drivers. You could always use more cab drivers.
The evening commute was delayed by the sudden glut of black and yellow taxis on the road. He stared out of the bus window and sighed dejectedly as two cabbies shouted curses at each other and repeatedly blew their horns.
There were several pantheons of ancient gods waiting in his apartment when Gordon got home. They had gotten wind of his growing frustration with his new station in the universe, and each offered to take some of the administrative duties off his hands in exchange for the smallest amount of power. Gordon mulled it over, but finally decided there wasn't a fair way to do it. For example, he would have gladly given Thor full reign over the skies... but if he did that, wouldn't he be obligated to give Hades control over the land of the dead? And quite frankly, the guy seemed a little too anxious for the work, and made Gordon nervous. Tempers flared when Buddha called Ganesh "big nose," resulting in a scuffle. A lamp was broken, and Gordon angrily ordered everyone out.
Later Gordon sat heavily on his bed, dreading the results of tonight's dreaming. He looked at his hands, and pondered the complete control over heaven and earth they now contained. He wished that none of this had ever happened.
That morning Gordon had a double tall low-fat latte with nutmeg sprinkled on top at Starbucks as he waited for his bus (the #11 Cedar cross-town). Doodling on a napkin he drew a mustache and goatee on the Starbucks lady, then mischievously gave her cleavage before blushing slightly and turning the napkin over. He wrote his name, turning the O's into eyes, then absently drew twelve intersecting lines. The paper cup slipped from his fingers, spilling steaming coffee and milk over the length of the tabletop. He quickly used the napkin to sop up as much of the coffee as he could and carried the soaking napkin and now empty cup to the trash. Looking at the smattering of coffee on his pants, he cursed his luck as he went outside to catch the bus.
The end
