The Great Phone Directory of the Earth and neighbouring planets: Chapter 24
Chapter 24
- That's not very nice of you, you know?
- I know. Inftead, alfo your idea of ftopping thif converfation leaving me all by my felf waiting for extinction waf not bad at all, thank you fo much.
- You are wrongly assuming that I may be able to help you, if only I wanted. Well, I cannot.
- Peace. If you already know how to fay it to your friendf waiting outfide we may af well hang up now. Or fhall I count to three?
- Hold on!
- Fo now all of a fudden you have the folution?
- No, and I don't think there is one, but that has become a secondary issue.
- You mean there if a bigger iffue?
- Yes, it relates to understanding what you are saying. Will you do me a favour?
- If it if poffible, yef, of courfe.
- If the polishmen have not polluted it yet, could you put some ice on that lip of yours? This is the first time I am blackmailed in a language I didn't know I had learnt, and I really would like to grasp all the details.
- Let me fee if I can find fome.
- If the ice is fuming, don't touch it. Not even if it is giving out a blinkinglight.
- Who would have faid… Hey no, come on! Thif if not feriuof!
- What happened?
- Fomebody haf fealed my freezer.
- Of course: that's the standard procedure.
- What'f on their mindf? They want to affaffinate me by depriving me of frozen fifh fingerf?
- Let me remind you that the average temperature on Jupiter is minus 320° F: a freezer is very often the only source of heat they have at home.
- Fo the polifhmen are all Jovialf?
- Not all of them. Let's say that when recruiting new polishmen being nice is not an essential prerequisite, and in this sense the Jovials seem quite fit for the job. I can hear a hiss… Are you still there?
- Yef, I am fpraying on my fuperior lip the only frozen ftuff I found in the houfe.
- And what is that?
- The entire fpray can of compreffed air I ufe to clean the computer'f keyboard.
- Oh, I see.
- Anything wrong?
- No, no, nothing.
- If there anything you don’t underftand? If it compreffed air?
- Of course I know what compressed air is.
- The fpray can?
- No.
- It muft be the computer. You don't know what a computer if?
- Don't worry: if what you're doing is helping you heal, keep on doing it and pretend I have understood.
- So, you really don't know what it is?
- There you are! The “s”! You got the “s” right!
- Yes, I only had to send back my gums to the Ice Age, but it has worked, apparently.
- Try saying “dispossessed”.
- Difpoffeffed.
- …
- Hey, that was a joke!
- And I was laughing my socks off, couldn't you just tell?
- Anyway: a computer is something that is capable of doing things we cannot do.
- I don't get it.
- You don't get what?
- Don't you already have God for that?
- God cannot be of much help if you have to print an invoice.
- How can you possibly print a voice?
- A... what…? No, no, an invoice is a piece of paper on which I write down that somebody owes me money because I have sold them something. I print it and let them have it so they know they have to pay me.
- Can't you just tell them?
- No, because from the moment I issue the invoice the person who owes me money has 30, 60 or 90 days’ time to pay me. Sometimes even 120 days, it depends. My invoice helps as a reminder.
- Why don’t they pay you immediately, just to get it out of the way?
- No, it doesn’t work like that. Maybe the sum owed is high and that person needs time to find the money, or perhaps doesn’t have the money at that moment but knows it will be available when the invoice falls due.
- Wouldn’t it be more convenient for you to tell them to come back as soon as they have the money?
- Let’s do something, shall we?
- Tell me.
- We have already tackled the money thing but I don’t think we have gone very far. Back to us? What do you think?
- No problem about that, even if I don’t know how to help you: if your death is bound to happen, one way or another you will die.
- Let me give you an update on what is going on in the past: I kept on digging and found the teapot: now I only need to remove the coins I had put inside it.
- You will regret it.
- Now it’s you threatening me?
- No, no, I only meant that you may regret it in the true sense of the word: once you remove the coins from the teapot the course of time will be irreparably modified.
- That’s exactly what my threat is all about.
- You seem to forget one thing: if you remove the coins, it means that those coins have never been there. It means that– for myself now and yourself in the future – all we have said during this phone call after I have inserted the second coin has never happened.
- You are only confusing me.
- Believe me: even if I agreed to think of a way out, you would not be able to remember to put them back in, in case, simply because – in the new course of time that will be traced if you do not leave everything exactly as it is– you would have never thought of removing them; you would have never gone so far as to conceive the threat, since the part of conversation in which you have threatened me would have never taken place.
- So, if I have got it right, if I opened the teapot and took back the coins, not only you would never receive them, but they would even disappear from my hands?
- If you wish to oversimplify, yes. You would create a spatial-temporal paradox that the course of time would be forced to correct somehow, probably by moving us all to a parallel dimension where no anomaly has occurred.
- So, I would be the anomaly?
- No, you would only be the cause for it. The anomaly would be that the coins, even if they were actually buried, would not be inside the teapot.
- No, we’re still not there. I really need you to explain to me the whole matter as if your were talking to a thick-headed child.
- Yes, but, since you don’t seem to understand things as they are, why should I make them even more complicated?
- I am sure you already know, don’t you, that if I were a little touchy your species would have no hope left?
- To tell the truth, I rely on the fact that you are underestimating the polishmen, and also on the fact that they seem determined to accomplish the mission they were sent here for, that is, that you die within a few seconds in any of the many conceivable ways, as it was established. I have no problem in being all agreeable with you for this brief period of time, but after that I will be free to hang up and use the coins I have left for the next call, the right one.
- You are right.
- Am I?
- Of course you are.
- I am glad you agree with me.
- You still haven’t explained that spatial-temporal paradox thing, yet I notice you are digging your heels in, which means that I will die both if I remain here acting as a target for the polishmen, and also if I decide to take the coins back.
- That’s correct.
- That’s why I have decided to take the coins back.
- No!
- You said I have nothing to lose.
- I obviously meant that you, conditions being equal, should choose the common good of many over the interest of a single individual.
- That’s an interesting position you are taking and, with all the necessary exceptions, it makes sense.
- Good.
- The thing is, one of those exceptions occurs just when the only individual is myself. This is the reason why I am kindly asking you to give my best regards to the “many”.
- No, wait!
- …and my profound feelings of appreciation, sympathy and, in consideration of what is awaiting you, also of deep mourning.
- Let’s talk about it, shall we?
- For goodness’ sake, I don’t want to deprive you of other precious time: you are about to face extinction and what do I do? I keep on chattering of this and that. I would have loved staying here, I really mean it, if you had found a way to save me from my destiny, but since you claim that everything is set and there’s nothing I can do about it, I believe it is totally useless to carry on with this conversation. Which, I’m telling you, was quite pleasant, don’t get me wrong …
- Hold on a minute!
- …yet, besides, a mysterious publisher from a planet I didn’t know was even inhabited has printed a book that says I must die today. Who am I to fight against all this, opposing this survival instinct nonsense?
- You just don’t understand…
- I understand very well, believe me, and precisely for this reason, before I extract my coins from the teapot, I will make the most of these last moments we have left, thanking you for the nice chat and…
- OK, all right.
- All right?
- You know, you really made me think, and I have rapidly come to the conclusion that, maybe, a couple of attempts to save your life can be made.
- Oh. See what happens when you concentrate just a little…!
- You would be the first living being of this galaxy to oppose The Great Telephone Directory of the Earth and Neighbouring Planets (Jupiter not included): no one has ever even only thought of trying, so I cannot guarantee a successful outcome.
- Tell me what I have to do.
- I must make a little introduction first…
- No. Tell me quickly, if you don’t mind, since it looks like those nice polishmen have started hitting with a stick a huge beehive in the garden, located just below my window.
- So you want me to tell you what to do just like that, without a little explanation?
- Exactly.
- You probably will not like it.
- As an alternative I can only see myself pollinated by a million bees, and they look rather pissed off.
- All right.
- Tell me, then.
- It’s simple: you should marry my daughter.
- I know. Inftead, alfo your idea of ftopping thif converfation leaving me all by my felf waiting for extinction waf not bad at all, thank you fo much.
- You are wrongly assuming that I may be able to help you, if only I wanted. Well, I cannot.
- Peace. If you already know how to fay it to your friendf waiting outfide we may af well hang up now. Or fhall I count to three?
- Hold on!
- Fo now all of a fudden you have the folution?
- No, and I don't think there is one, but that has become a secondary issue.
- You mean there if a bigger iffue?
- Yes, it relates to understanding what you are saying. Will you do me a favour?
- If it if poffible, yef, of courfe.
- If the polishmen have not polluted it yet, could you put some ice on that lip of yours? This is the first time I am blackmailed in a language I didn't know I had learnt, and I really would like to grasp all the details.
- Let me fee if I can find fome.
- If the ice is fuming, don't touch it. Not even if it is giving out a blinkinglight.
- Who would have faid… Hey no, come on! Thif if not feriuof!
- What happened?
- Fomebody haf fealed my freezer.
- Of course: that's the standard procedure.
- What'f on their mindf? They want to affaffinate me by depriving me of frozen fifh fingerf?
- Let me remind you that the average temperature on Jupiter is minus 320° F: a freezer is very often the only source of heat they have at home.
- Fo the polifhmen are all Jovialf?
- Not all of them. Let's say that when recruiting new polishmen being nice is not an essential prerequisite, and in this sense the Jovials seem quite fit for the job. I can hear a hiss… Are you still there?
- Yef, I am fpraying on my fuperior lip the only frozen ftuff I found in the houfe.
- And what is that?
- The entire fpray can of compreffed air I ufe to clean the computer'f keyboard.
- Oh, I see.
- Anything wrong?
- No, no, nothing.
- If there anything you don’t underftand? If it compreffed air?
- Of course I know what compressed air is.
- The fpray can?
- No.
- It muft be the computer. You don't know what a computer if?
- Don't worry: if what you're doing is helping you heal, keep on doing it and pretend I have understood.
- So, you really don't know what it is?
- There you are! The “s”! You got the “s” right!
- Yes, I only had to send back my gums to the Ice Age, but it has worked, apparently.
- Try saying “dispossessed”.
- Difpoffeffed.
- …
- Hey, that was a joke!
- And I was laughing my socks off, couldn't you just tell?
- Anyway: a computer is something that is capable of doing things we cannot do.
- I don't get it.
- You don't get what?
- Don't you already have God for that?
- God cannot be of much help if you have to print an invoice.
- How can you possibly print a voice?
- A... what…? No, no, an invoice is a piece of paper on which I write down that somebody owes me money because I have sold them something. I print it and let them have it so they know they have to pay me.
- Can't you just tell them?
- No, because from the moment I issue the invoice the person who owes me money has 30, 60 or 90 days’ time to pay me. Sometimes even 120 days, it depends. My invoice helps as a reminder.
- Why don’t they pay you immediately, just to get it out of the way?
- No, it doesn’t work like that. Maybe the sum owed is high and that person needs time to find the money, or perhaps doesn’t have the money at that moment but knows it will be available when the invoice falls due.
- Wouldn’t it be more convenient for you to tell them to come back as soon as they have the money?
- Let’s do something, shall we?
- Tell me.
- We have already tackled the money thing but I don’t think we have gone very far. Back to us? What do you think?
- No problem about that, even if I don’t know how to help you: if your death is bound to happen, one way or another you will die.
- Let me give you an update on what is going on in the past: I kept on digging and found the teapot: now I only need to remove the coins I had put inside it.
- You will regret it.
- Now it’s you threatening me?
- No, no, I only meant that you may regret it in the true sense of the word: once you remove the coins from the teapot the course of time will be irreparably modified.
- That’s exactly what my threat is all about.
- You seem to forget one thing: if you remove the coins, it means that those coins have never been there. It means that– for myself now and yourself in the future – all we have said during this phone call after I have inserted the second coin has never happened.
- You are only confusing me.
- Believe me: even if I agreed to think of a way out, you would not be able to remember to put them back in, in case, simply because – in the new course of time that will be traced if you do not leave everything exactly as it is– you would have never thought of removing them; you would have never gone so far as to conceive the threat, since the part of conversation in which you have threatened me would have never taken place.
- So, if I have got it right, if I opened the teapot and took back the coins, not only you would never receive them, but they would even disappear from my hands?
- If you wish to oversimplify, yes. You would create a spatial-temporal paradox that the course of time would be forced to correct somehow, probably by moving us all to a parallel dimension where no anomaly has occurred.
- So, I would be the anomaly?
- No, you would only be the cause for it. The anomaly would be that the coins, even if they were actually buried, would not be inside the teapot.
- No, we’re still not there. I really need you to explain to me the whole matter as if your were talking to a thick-headed child.
- Yes, but, since you don’t seem to understand things as they are, why should I make them even more complicated?
- I am sure you already know, don’t you, that if I were a little touchy your species would have no hope left?
- To tell the truth, I rely on the fact that you are underestimating the polishmen, and also on the fact that they seem determined to accomplish the mission they were sent here for, that is, that you die within a few seconds in any of the many conceivable ways, as it was established. I have no problem in being all agreeable with you for this brief period of time, but after that I will be free to hang up and use the coins I have left for the next call, the right one.
- You are right.
- Am I?
- Of course you are.
- I am glad you agree with me.
- You still haven’t explained that spatial-temporal paradox thing, yet I notice you are digging your heels in, which means that I will die both if I remain here acting as a target for the polishmen, and also if I decide to take the coins back.
- That’s correct.
- That’s why I have decided to take the coins back.
- No!
- You said I have nothing to lose.
- I obviously meant that you, conditions being equal, should choose the common good of many over the interest of a single individual.
- That’s an interesting position you are taking and, with all the necessary exceptions, it makes sense.
- Good.
- The thing is, one of those exceptions occurs just when the only individual is myself. This is the reason why I am kindly asking you to give my best regards to the “many”.
- No, wait!
- …and my profound feelings of appreciation, sympathy and, in consideration of what is awaiting you, also of deep mourning.
- Let’s talk about it, shall we?
- For goodness’ sake, I don’t want to deprive you of other precious time: you are about to face extinction and what do I do? I keep on chattering of this and that. I would have loved staying here, I really mean it, if you had found a way to save me from my destiny, but since you claim that everything is set and there’s nothing I can do about it, I believe it is totally useless to carry on with this conversation. Which, I’m telling you, was quite pleasant, don’t get me wrong …
- Hold on a minute!
- …yet, besides, a mysterious publisher from a planet I didn’t know was even inhabited has printed a book that says I must die today. Who am I to fight against all this, opposing this survival instinct nonsense?
- You just don’t understand…
- I understand very well, believe me, and precisely for this reason, before I extract my coins from the teapot, I will make the most of these last moments we have left, thanking you for the nice chat and…
- OK, all right.
- All right?
- You know, you really made me think, and I have rapidly come to the conclusion that, maybe, a couple of attempts to save your life can be made.
- Oh. See what happens when you concentrate just a little…!
- You would be the first living being of this galaxy to oppose The Great Telephone Directory of the Earth and Neighbouring Planets (Jupiter not included): no one has ever even only thought of trying, so I cannot guarantee a successful outcome.
- Tell me what I have to do.
- I must make a little introduction first…
- No. Tell me quickly, if you don’t mind, since it looks like those nice polishmen have started hitting with a stick a huge beehive in the garden, located just below my window.
- So you want me to tell you what to do just like that, without a little explanation?
- Exactly.
- You probably will not like it.
- As an alternative I can only see myself pollinated by a million bees, and they look rather pissed off.
- All right.
- Tell me, then.
- It’s simple: you should marry my daughter.
English translation by Paola Corazza
© 2009 Gianluca Neri - All Rights Reserved