Chaos Theory: A Feel Good Story About the End of the World Read online

  Contents

  CHAOS THEORY

  DISCLAIMER

  PREFACE

  ABOUT THE SCIENCE

  titlepage

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 4.6692

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  APPENDIX A: THE 5.5 EPIPHANIES

  APPENDIX B

  APPENDIX C: THE PRESIDENT'S POETRY

  APPENDIX D: THE MACGUFFIN EQUATION

  APPENDIX E: ALTERNATE ENDING

  THE END

  about

  also

  Chaos Theory

  For Dad,

  Who thought I was funny (in a good way) and

  wanted me to be a New Yorker cartoonist.

  Think of this book as a cartoon with far too many words

  and not nearly enough pictures.

  Hopefully you would have liked it.

  Disclaimer

  Normally, this is where you'd read:

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Which, for the most part, is true. In this work, however, a little more needs to be said.

  Several of the characters here are clearly named after and based on real persons, i.e., the famous ones. That said, those actual portrayals are entirely fictitious, satirical, and do not depict actual events or words spoken by those individuals. Think of them as fictional versions of those persons, capable of actions entirely inconsistent with the real individual, existing in a parallel universe that has little or nothing to do with reality, similar to FOX News, or MSNBC. Some of the people I unfairly caricature are actually very smart, talented and, hopefully, able to laugh at themselves.

  Oh, and if you're wondering about those quotations. They're all taken from Bartlett's Book of Pseudepigraphic Quotations. Which is to say, the person quoted almost certainly said those words, although perhaps in a different order, with a different meaning, and not all at the same time. This means they might not be, strictly speaking, true. As Pope Benedict IX once said, "To err is human; to lie, divine."

  Preface

  [SPOILER ALERT]

  This book contains the meaning of life. So stop reading now if you want to, you know, wait until 'the end' to find out. Either way, you may leave a little disappointed.

  I always wanted to write a book about the meaning of life. The problem was, I didn't know what that was. I still don't. So I decided to write about that instead. As with my first book, The Siege of Walter Parks, this was actually conceived many years ago. In fact, it was authored way back in 2004 when the Earth was young. It was written originally as a screenplay, although I made no attempt to sell it. I considered it unsellable and wrote it entirely for my own amusement. By lowering the bar to such a level, I figured, success was guaranteed. The ending was based on a dream I had. In my wife's words, I have weird dreams. She says that, not because they're full of odd ideas and images, everyone has those. It's because they tend to have actual story lines and structure. I have no idea how common or uncommon that is. All I know is it means I get to write things in my sleep. Like most people, even if I remember my dreams when I awaken, they tend to melt from memory like a dusting of snow in the light of day. This dream, on the other hand, persisted like oobleck. So, I wrote it down. That makes this book, arguably, some sort of therapy—for me, that is. You're welcome.

  Enjoy.

  CJR

  About the Science

  Since this book is called Chaos Theory, it seems appropriate to comment on the science, specifically the math and physics, involved.

  There isn't any.

  Okay, technically that's not true. For the most part gravity and light operate according the laws of physics. The characters walk on the ground and have mass. Numbers go up, as well as down, and only occasionally from side to side. It's only towards the end that reality gets tossed out the window like a houseguest who has overstayed his welcome. Still, if you purchased this book hoping to learn about mathematical chaos theory, or learn anything at all really, you have made a very poor selection. I suggest you return it for a full refund and write an angry review on your bookseller's website. Feel free to throw in a few personal comments about myself as you imagine me to be.

  It's fair to say that, when grouped with other authors who have written about chaos theory, I am uniquely qualified. Whereas they presumably all have degrees in mathematics and other "relevant" education, I have a BA in English. Among them, I stand alone and probably facing in the wrong direction.

  I made up the principle premise of the book, called 'Loose Thread', out of whole cloth, as it were. I was therefore, somewhat surprised when recently Stephen Hawking stole my idea and alarmed the world by claiming the Higgs particle could be unstable and transition to a lower energy state*, effectively making this a textbook. I was surprised for a few reasons. First, while originally written many years ago, this book was unpublished. I can only conclude, therefore, that Stephen Hawking has hacked my personal laptop in order to read my stuff. Secondly, I was surprised and horrified by the notion that somehow something in the book was even theoretically plausible. If so, the author regrets the error. Fortunately, other physicists seem to think Hawking is wrong on this and I, for one, choose to believe them. In fact, I'd stake my reputation as an English major on it.

  Anyway, the point is, the math and physics in this book, as in real life, are just metaphors or plot devices, specifically the kind that explode.

  * Yes, I know he wasn't the first person to postulate this, but he was the first famous person to do so, and I live in Los Angeles where that's the only thing that counts.

  Prologue

  Truman Gorge Road, Michigan. Sunday, December 6, 1959, 07:45 hrs.

  Two things happened that morning that had never happened before anywhere, anytime. In the tens of millions of snowflakes that fell that morning, there were two that were completely identical. Examine them under a microscope and you'd see every crystallized timber of frozen water was exactly the same in both size and shape. They were, to the smallest detail, perfect twins descending from heaven. The first flake was obliterated when it hit a tree branch. Its twin, unaware of the first flake's existence or tragic death, as snowflakes tend to be, evanesced into a snowbank on the edge of the gorge. That was the first event. The second happened as follows...

  Truman Gorge is a giant two hundred foot deep scar in the Earth's crust left over from the glaciers' retreat at the end of the Ice Age. Back then, snow and ice stood two miles thick and reshaped the land with the weight of their passage. Today, the infestations of humans who occupy the planet complain about a mere six inches of snow and fret at the thought of having to scrape frost from their windshields.

  That morning, the forest had been silent, still and cold. Suddenly, the rumble of motor vehicles s
plit the silence and grew rapidly louder. A small convoy plowed its way down the snow shrouded gravel road that ran along the gorge's eastern edge. The vehicles were US Army—an armoured truck escorted by twin jeeps, front and rear. On the radio, Frank Sinatra crooned.

  Once I was happy but now I'm forlorn,

  Like an old coat that is tattered and torn,

  Left on this wide world to fret and to mourn,

  Betray'd by a maid in her teens....

  The truck driver was thirty-five years old, moustached, and balding. For a Sergeant, that put him well past his prime. Most of his contemporaries had left the army after the war, but not him. He had nothing else to do and nowhere else to be than right here, singing along with the radio, badly. His passenger was a young Private, a draftee. The Private frowned. He frowned a lot, so this was not surprising. He'd become quite good at it and took pride in his ability to make the world aware of how he often did not approve of the way it went about its business. At that moment he was frowning with extra vigour. The tinny sound of the radio was driving him to distraction, but not nearly as much as the Sergeant's singing. The Private ground his teeth and glared furiously past the windshield wipers as they swept millions of unremarkably unique snowflakes from the glass.

  It was no accident that this convoy was small and traveling on a quiet Sunday morning along an even quieter country road largely avoided in winter by sensible travellers. All of this was done to avoid attention. Despite these efforts, the convoy's passing did not go unobserved. Standing like stumps amid the black trees were two men, far enough from the road to remain unnoticed themselves. One of the men was older, with thinning grey hair. The other was nearly twenty-five-years his junior and just past his prime. They had not happened upon the convoy, whose very existence was known only to the highest members of the military and the White House. They'd known it was coming. They had been waiting for it.

  Inside the truck cab, the Private continued to glower with the expertise of a practiced glowerer. Everything was annoying him now, including the rabbit's foot charm that swayed and bounced below the rearview mirror. The motion of the jeep escort ahead telegraphed every uncomfortable pothole and bump that was to come. Most annoying of all, the sergeant seemed utterly oblivious to the Private's disapproval. He actually appeared cheerful as he sang along to the radio. "...He'd fly through the air with the greatest of ease, that daring young man on the flying trapeze. His movements were graceful—"

  At that moment the song dissolved into static.

  "Ah Hell!" the Sergeant growled and whacked the radio. "How can everything be all clear and then just go all to fuzz like that? God Damn!"

  "Must you?"

  The Sergeant looked surprised. This is the first word the Private had spoken in over an hour. "What? You don't appreciate my singin' ? Well, maybe if you joined in, son."

  "I don't want to join in."

  The Sergeant fiddled with the knob but succeeded only in changing the quality of the static. He turned the radio off. "It's the goddamn trees. We're just too deep in the woods now, damn it!"

  "That! That is what I mind—you taking the Lord's name in vain."

  "That's what you mind?" The Sergeant stared at him incredulously. He studied the Private for a moment, looking him up and down like a lepidopterist studies a butterfly before deciding it's nothing more than a common danaus plexippus. "Let me tell you somethin', son, when you've been on the beaches of Normandy, dredging Hell's cesspool without your hip-waders, when you've seen that Satan wears a swastika on his sleeve..." The Sergeant tapped an imaginary armband on his sleeve. At that moment the truck hit a frozen log in the road and lurched towards the ditch. In the back of the truck, a crate, labeled 'United States Military—Top Secret', tested its redundant harnesses. With both hands back on the wheel, the Sergeant returned the truck to the center of the road and continued, "...then, and only then, can you tell me not to take the God Damn Lord's name in vain."

  The Sergeant had indeed seen Nazis in Normandy. He had also seen one of the most famous Nazis of all 'up close and personal'. After the war, he had been detailed to guard Hermann Wilhelm Göring at his trial in Nuremburg. The former Reichsmarschall had largely ignored him as a lowly private at the time, instead choosing to befriend Lieutenant Tex Wheelis. Göring said only one thing to the then-private during his entire course of duty. "You should grow a moustache. Men would respect you more." Göring himself was clean-shaven. When he'd arrived in prison, Göring was fat and wore nail polish. He'd lost the weight since the start of the trial, but not the affectations or ability to inspire awe. Three days later, to avoid death by hanging, the Nazi would take potassium cyanide—death by his own perfectly manicured hand. In spite of it all, the Sergeant, took his advice.

  The Private gave the Sergeant his most withering gaze.

  "Fine, fine, I'll try to—" The Sergeant slammed the brakes. "Oh Christ! I mean crap! Ah Hell." The heavy truck heaved to a grinding halt, inches from the back bumper of the front escort. One of the soldiers in the jeep watched this with only passive concern, stolidly bracing himself for the possible impact by tightening his lips around his cigarette. When the impact did not come, he pulled it out of his mouth and calmly exhaled twin plumes of smoke from his nostrils.

  The driver of the jeep had already left the vehicle and was standing in shin deep drifts assessing the state of the bridge ahead. Only the steel beams of the superstructure were visible. The roadbed of the bridge itself was completely covered in six feet of snow. The driver waved and lifted his walkie-talkie to talk. His radio-modulated voice entered the truck cab, "Definite no-go, Sarge, over."

  The pinprick of orange fire swelled at the tip of the other soldier's cigarette as he inhaled. He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and examined it as if it were something interesting. The man's obvious indifference to the situation annoyed the Private even more. The Sergeant picked up the receiver, "Roger."

  "Can't seem to reach HQ on the horn from here, either."

  "Roger that, hold on."

  "Roger."

  The Sergeant released the button and considered the situation.

  "We'll have to turn around," the Private said flatly.

  The Sergeant snorted. "Fine, you can do the driving. Wake me up when you finished backing us up the forty miles through these woods, cuz you sure as Hell ain't doin' a three-point-turn."

  The Private looked out of his window. The soldiers from the rear escort had also left their vehicle and were now engaged in informal calisthenics to return circulation to their feet. Behind them, the long plowed path they'd created along the gorge edge was already being obliterated with rapidly falling snow.

  "I, uh..., um. What do we do?"

  "Well, for starters you can reach in the glovebox for the map. Maybe we can find ourselves an altern-o-teeve."

  "We can't do that! HQ gave us a very explicit route to follow."

  "Yeah, well, so apparently the weather didn't get the orders. Remember? It wasn't supposed to snow today."

  The Private frowned with disapproval.

  "Son, let me tell you somethin'. Sometimes in the real world, mice and men and most especially soldiers need to make changes to the best laid plans."

  The Sergeant reached past the Private, into the glove compartment and pulled out a badly folded map. He opened it, turned it over and studied it for a moment. With his little finger tracing the red road line, he picked up the receiver once more. "Pandora to Escort 1. We got a change of plans..."

  Ten minutes later, the three vehicle convoy came to a halt once more, this time in front of a much smaller bridge. On the side of the road, a fallen sign lay half-buried in the snow.

  "You want to get out and see what that says?" the Sergeant grinned. "You know, to make sure this is it?"

  "It says this is the Old Gorge Bridge"

  "You're sure?"

  "I can see the word 'Old'. Plus there were no other bridges on the stupid map."

  "All right, then."

  The Pri
vate looked at the wooden bridge. The frozen support beams extended from a mere six inches of snow on the roadbed. "I don't get it. Why was the other bridge buried and this one's fine?"

  "Gorge winds. They move the snow in mysterious ways. No rhyme, no reason."

  The front escort driver looked back at them through the warped plastic rear window of the jeep. The Sergeant nodded and gave him a thumbs-up. The convoy rolled forward.

  Seen only by the snowflakes that covered its face, the sign did indeed read "Old Gorge Bridge". It also included other fascinating details, such as the year of its construction, 1890, as well as its estimated physical capacity of 12,000 lbs. Of course, what makes these details even more interesting is when you consider other factors such as the weight of the snow accumulated on the surface of the bridge, and the weight of the truck, jeeps and men inside. Add to this the age of the structure and its shameful neglect since the construction of the newer bridge and you have a very interesting situation indeed. As the truck's wheels crunched cautiously across the bridge surface, the wood beams creaked and bowed in protest.

  "Just for the record, I still don't like the idea of taking an alternate route," the Private muttered. He imagined an inquiry later, standing in front of Major Dolkin's desk. The Major would commend him on his attention to orders. "I'll put that in my report," the Major would say with a nod.

  The front jeep rolled safely up onto the far side of the gorge as the truck reached the middle of the bridge. The Sergeant shook his head with a smirk. "Duly noted in the cover-your-ass file."

  There was a massive cracking sound. Beneath the roadbed one of the sixty-nine-year-old support beams gave way with a snap! The bridge tilted ten degrees with a stomach wrenching twist. The Sergeant slammed on the brakes as the truck rocked uncertainly.

  "Jesus Christ!" shouted the Private.

  For several seconds the two soldiers sat frozen in the truck cab. They watched their collective breath cloud the cold air and listened to the pulse in their ears. They watched each other from the corners of their eyes.