Psalehesost
The Living Force
Drawing upon material I wrote a number of months ago, I produced the following short story. It obviously contains a fair bit of absurdity, yet there are a number of serious points to be found as it is read - and I think these reasonably easy to discern in the context of what we know and have discussed.
The Man, Destiny, and the Giggling Nose
It happened that there was a man in the process of walking to his place of work. Nothing unexpected happened, and he arrived as usual, spending a good many hours working, and then preparing to leave for home.
But on his way home, a stranger approached him, and this stranger said something wholly unexpected: "It is hereby made known that your nose shall giggle in accordance with the prophecy."
The man, thinking little of this, simply walked on. But when he arrived at his door, his nose began, gradually at first, to twitch constantly, and the time would be short before he would begin to hear a sound, the never-ceasing sound of giggling.
His nose persisting in its unusual activity, he soon began to accept this new situation, and became determined to learn all he could about it. He spent the night thinking about this new reality of his life, as the sound of the giggling nose kept him awake.
Morning eventually came, and the man went once again to work after his breakfast. His boss had a new task for him and proceeded to discuss it, all the while becoming increasingly aware of the strange sound that emanated from the nose of the man. The boss was most perplexed, and became increasingly nervous as he began to doubt his own sanity; he soon decided to immediately schedule an appointment for an examination at the local mental hospital, frightful thoughts racing in his head.
As the man went home that day, his boss went in for a rigorous psychiatric evaluation, and at the end of it he was prescribed a variety of pharmacological substances, which he went to procure at once; having taken them, the side effects were quick to manifest, and he began to hallucinate in earnest. Thus his fate became sealed, and he was to spend the rest of his life locked into a mental institution.
Meanwhile the man, in going about his daily business, was in the process of making a new aquaintance; someone who, having quickly noticed the state of his nose, was eager to converse - this acquaintance, it turned out, had begun to study the issue in great eagerness, having encountered other cases.
Having both open minds and a thirst for knowledge, the two soon came to work together, and what they discovered in their research would come to be of great significance for all of humankind.
They saw that this phenomenon, which was forever increasing in scope, implied the beginning of a change in the condition of the human existence, an event extending to a cosmic scale.
Several years passed, and eventually it came to be that the greater part of humanity had acquired noses that giggled; and despite the efforts of many on an ever-increasing scale to spread knowledge of what was to come, this came as a shock to many who were unable to accept the reality, and chaos naturally resulted.
Much would happen among those least prepared, among whom there happened to be many mental health professionals; unable to accept the new reality of the existence they found themselves in, they promptly declared themselves psychotic, and finding that there were none left to take care of them, they soon sank into helplessness, which descended into catatonia; and were it not for a number of former patients more accepting of reality, they would have starved to death, for these patients now took over the asylums, and in a great display of humanity they would come to take care of their former caretakers.
New events soon proceeded of which many were of an even stranger nature, but thanks to the ongoing spreading of awareness throughout the world, humanity was to prove itself capable of facing that which ultimately confronted it.
New times arrived, and as ages passed, many stories of the past came to be told as they formed in the cultural mind; one of these, illustrating the state of mind of humanity at large at the time of the onset of the great challenges now of the past, ultimately came to be as follows:
The Man, Destiny, and the Giggling Nose
It happened that there was a man in the process of walking to his place of work. Nothing unexpected happened, and he arrived as usual, spending a good many hours working, and then preparing to leave for home.
But on his way home, a stranger approached him, and this stranger said something wholly unexpected: "It is hereby made known that your nose shall giggle in accordance with the prophecy."
The man, thinking little of this, simply walked on. But when he arrived at his door, his nose began, gradually at first, to twitch constantly, and the time would be short before he would begin to hear a sound, the never-ceasing sound of giggling.
His nose persisting in its unusual activity, he soon began to accept this new situation, and became determined to learn all he could about it. He spent the night thinking about this new reality of his life, as the sound of the giggling nose kept him awake.
Morning eventually came, and the man went once again to work after his breakfast. His boss had a new task for him and proceeded to discuss it, all the while becoming increasingly aware of the strange sound that emanated from the nose of the man. The boss was most perplexed, and became increasingly nervous as he began to doubt his own sanity; he soon decided to immediately schedule an appointment for an examination at the local mental hospital, frightful thoughts racing in his head.
As the man went home that day, his boss went in for a rigorous psychiatric evaluation, and at the end of it he was prescribed a variety of pharmacological substances, which he went to procure at once; having taken them, the side effects were quick to manifest, and he began to hallucinate in earnest. Thus his fate became sealed, and he was to spend the rest of his life locked into a mental institution.
Meanwhile the man, in going about his daily business, was in the process of making a new aquaintance; someone who, having quickly noticed the state of his nose, was eager to converse - this acquaintance, it turned out, had begun to study the issue in great eagerness, having encountered other cases.
Having both open minds and a thirst for knowledge, the two soon came to work together, and what they discovered in their research would come to be of great significance for all of humankind.
They saw that this phenomenon, which was forever increasing in scope, implied the beginning of a change in the condition of the human existence, an event extending to a cosmic scale.
Several years passed, and eventually it came to be that the greater part of humanity had acquired noses that giggled; and despite the efforts of many on an ever-increasing scale to spread knowledge of what was to come, this came as a shock to many who were unable to accept the reality, and chaos naturally resulted.
Much would happen among those least prepared, among whom there happened to be many mental health professionals; unable to accept the new reality of the existence they found themselves in, they promptly declared themselves psychotic, and finding that there were none left to take care of them, they soon sank into helplessness, which descended into catatonia; and were it not for a number of former patients more accepting of reality, they would have starved to death, for these patients now took over the asylums, and in a great display of humanity they would come to take care of their former caretakers.
New events soon proceeded of which many were of an even stranger nature, but thanks to the ongoing spreading of awareness throughout the world, humanity was to prove itself capable of facing that which ultimately confronted it.
New times arrived, and as ages passed, many stories of the past came to be told as they formed in the cultural mind; one of these, illustrating the state of mind of humanity at large at the time of the onset of the great challenges now of the past, ultimately came to be as follows:
