I honestly don’t
remember the class we were in. It was an afternoon one, for sure. That
afternoon doze denied us, as always. We were not at the top of our form -
especially Duane who would get no awards for pen rolling. In this instance “we”
were myself and Duane.
We had been
discussing the plus and minuses of a girl. She was not, of course, in any of
our classes. The classroom we were about to enter was the only one Duane and I
shared. It seemed imperative that we continue our discussion immediately. With
the classroom etiquette in our way, we resorted to notes. Duane was five up and
on my left. As always, a big classroom, which was fortunate since they were
many desks in it, providing cover. Student-to-teacher ratio was never one of my
concerns. It also never seemed to affect the quality of instruction. We were
the best judge of that but, of course, it was never asked of us.
Three notes had
come to me and those three returned to Duane. Then I got one in code. Letters
had been rearranged. I thought I got the code. I needed to write something down
for assistance. I motioned to Duane by scrawling on the desktop with my finger.
He leaned down and rolled a fountain pen (of all things!) in my direction. As
it rolled, it leaked. It hit a few joints in the floor tiles so that it jumped
and spewed deep dark blue splashes of ink that were added to the trail.
I reached out
and over and down for the pen. Two fingers became blue. No one except us two
had seen it. Then Tipton across the aisle found it. I am sorry to say I thought
of a bathroom break, or maybe trade places with Tipton? But he was looking at
me as if I hadn’t gone to the bathroom and should have. Also, we were arranged
in assigned seats. Then finally the teacher ended my agony when she saw it.
Duane brought it off beautifully - slipped from his grasp and started on an
independent journey in my general direction, Duane needed a new pen. My need to
decipher the message became mute.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Whereas Janusz
Koslowski had a need for cryptography, surreptitious cryptography and with no
women involved. No ink trails, but nevertheless he was in trouble, big trouble,
since They were interested in him. It was because They knew his recent
entrepreneurial venture into translation and editing had a third and hidden
component.
It was all in a
smooth black (naturally) metal box. Actually the third component wasn’t in the
box. It was said to be “associated” with it. It is not at all clear how Janusz
developed this connection. He was actively seeking it but how it explicitly
came about was unexpected. What he got became known (to very few) as the
Quantum Entity. I called it the QE.
Naturally Mr.
Holmes, when referring to it, gave the full two words. Mr. Holmes learned of
the box and two of its components via “our page” in the local newspaper. A tiny
ad was there proclaiming how Janusz (J) had for sale, and now for
demonstration, his box. We had no idea there was the third component. It could
decode or decipher the meaning of any communication, and it could respond like
an oracle to questions of fate or perplexity.
It was
unwittingly started along to completion by a cousin of J who had heard of
Rejewski’s exploits in mostly pre-WWII Poland. Rejewski had figured out how the
German Enigma worked. The Engima began in 1918 by Scherbius of Scherbius and
Ritter. Later it had three then five rotors to scramble letters for messages to
be sent by business enterprises and the military. The German military got
30,000 of the Engimas. They were much used in WWII. You know, Bletchley and all
that.
What Rejewski
did was to detail the 105,456 rotor settings. That took a year. Then machines
were set up to check on rotor arrangements, they were replicas of Enigmas.
These machines were called bombes, and they could get the settings in two
hours.
J didn’t build a
bombe. He actually started out with translating. You would feed in a paper page
on which was typed what needed to be translated. Out came the translation.
Nifty, but common. J added an editing component to the box. In went a document
through a second slot to be edited and back came an edited (more or less)
version of that document. But these two functions of the box and their two
slots for insertion were fronts for J’s real interest - cypto and answers
without limits. The translator and editor represented some money but the crypto
function guaranteed power and a great deal of it. That was what J wanted.
He also wanted
recognition. He made it known through back channels that his box could do more
than translate and edit. The cypto position came into play through a third
hidden slot in that box. Also, anything could be asked of it. It could solve
any cryto puzzle put to it. And I do say “asked.” J would talk to the machine then he typed
what he had asked or proposed. Later he spoke as he typed. He didn’t always get
a reply. If he did, it could be garbled (and not in code). Once a reply took a
week. Whatever it took, if J could understand the reply, it was awesome.
Such a huge
potential led J to incautiously place another tiny ad on our page. J was
touting the box as an enterprise of his Hobby and Invention shop. His shop had
been owned by Sam before Sam turned to bribery (see the Adventure of The Babel
Plants, Part Three). The ad mentioned crypto and something like “no job too
big.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Holmes had
snapped the paper open. As always he went to our page first. He found the
second ad.
Really, now I
will need my magnifying glass if these little adverts become any smaller. What
is this? I do believe the proprietor of Hobby and Invention is going into a
dangerous area. It could be he has made himself a subject of interest to Them.
Sam of course is in confinement but the new owner will be lucky to be so
situated. I must repair to Hobby and Invention forthwith.
I decided to
also head that way. We parted at the shop entrance. J was down the street at a
snack shop, so Mr. Holmes went to get him and I decided I would hang out with
John Rockenjer, J’s assistant, who was minding the store. I had hardly got into
the shop and began to survey projects, parts, electronics of all kinds, and
scientific support books and games when I discovered a Zeegler behind me and
another and another... I ended up bound and gagged in a chair sitting where I
could not be seen unless someone opened the door wide. John was on the floor
behind the counter - gagged and tied.
I heard Mr.
Holmes and J talking as they approached the door to the shop. They entered and
took a few steps when approximately nine Zeeglers emerged from behind various
parts of the shop. Each had a knife in hand. Mr. Holmes struck J senseless so
that he slumped into a pile against the wall and floor. Mr. Holmes crouched
over J. The Zeeglers came at Mr. Holmes in pairs or threes lunging at J but Mr.
Holmes fended them off. After four or five attacks, the Zeeglers regrouped and
as one they held their knives aloft and then launched them at J. Mr. Holmes was
like a hockey goalie in thrusting out his legs to block some of the knives.
Others he caught in his hands, but one got J in the shoulder and two more ended
up in a leg. The blades were not long and the wounds, thus, were superficial.
Then the Zeeglers disappeared.
Mr. Holmes had
knocked out J to make him easier to defend. Mr. Holmes had him in a compact
place and knew the immovable borders to defend. Mr. Holmes undid me. John had
worked himself free. J needed little attention, more of a bloody mess than
anything else.
Me - Why knives?
Mr. Holmes - Why
indeed and with short blades. They had no intention of greatly harming Janusz.
A scare tactic?
Perhaps. In the
event, Janusz must go into hiding, separately from the box. Obviously They are
presenting evidence to Janusz that They will affect whatever they regard as
necessary vis-à-vis the box and Janusz. The effort on Their part will take
place soon and be the apprehension of Janusz and the box. Once Janusz shows
Them how it works, then Janusz will be no more.
I went home and
at least I had no headache or chest pain this time unlike some of my other
encounters with the Zeeglers. The Zeeglers hadn’t tied us tightly. I hadn’t
tried to force my bonds as John did. Surely they could have done better than
that. When Mr. Holmes arrived he appeared quite concerned, very perturbed.
My dear boy,
this has become a matter of the utmost urgency.
His box is that
good?
His Quantum
Entity, as he calls it, if in the hands of Them, will secure world domination
for Them and, in due time, world destruction - except for Their enclaves, of
course.
No secrets safe
from Them?
Yes, I am sorry
to say. It is quite irritating that Janusz insists his box has no superordinary
capabilities, he says the Zeeglers came to seize the box, and that there was
one in the shop but it was only a prototype. Furthermore, the prototype has
only translating and editing activities. What nonsense! In his shop I asked him
to show me the design of the box. Janusz began to get out some blueprints and
notes he had drawn up. These were incomplete, deliberately so. Meanwhile in an
adjacent room, wadded newspapers in a waste bin that I had lit a few moments
previously were in flaming contact with window drapes. I took a few steps to
the doorway to that other room and paused. Janusz, succumbing to the old trick,
rushed to another file cabinet and drew out other drawings and notes. I
contrived to bump into Janusz when he was exiting to the storefront and he
dropped all on the floor. He begged me not to help him. But I saw enough to
know what Janusz had been attempting and had now succeeded in building. The box
had a third component. For it, there was an off and on toggle switch. A blue
light was lit if it was operating.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fortunately, I
could get free of this ominous business by the simple expedient of attending
school, which I did with obliterating gusto. Some guys from Detroit came in for
a talk about car design and with a snazzy big model of the look of a car of the
future. So? It was all over our heads (and we were all boys, except in one
instance) - the math, the drafting skill, the interest in such a mass of metal.
To drive it would have been cool but then what? As a job? We all had vague
notions about what was a “job.” No thanks. Later, one of the speakers put up on
the board the usual math symbol for infinity. A girl did the ID of it without
having got her hand up. I had gotten my hand up first. Anyway, for them to
sully the deep glorious dense mystery of a fascinating concept with a
connection to car design was repellent to me.
Duane and I
walked home across the fields close to our homes. In the days in decades to
come we would have been on peoples’ lawns. If it was open, it was built upon,
such is “progress” at all times and in all places. He spilt off a few blocks
from my place, and I entered my room to find Mr. Holmes and J in conversational
low tones. J had my chair so I went to the bed. J was looking at the floor,
musing, as I came in, and Mr. H had put a finger to his mouth to signify recognition
that I had arrived and to be quiet. I sat on the bed.
Mr. Holmes -
Surely Janusz you do not believe They (of course J didn’t hear a “They,” it was
“they” to him) will now ignore you? You are in much danger. Though I fail to
see what translation and editing can be as so important to them.
J - Industrial
competition. I have a very good machine, an excellent product.
H - The puzzles
it can solve, no task too difficult?
J - Of course,
all translation and editing done well.
H - (impatient
and raising his voice) Mr. Koslowski, your box is not all about translation and
editing. Is not that correct?
J had been with
eyes on the floor until now. He looked at Mr. Holmes with tears in his eyes.
And why not? I know more than others. Why should I not be unlike the others?
H - (pressing)
You will soon be in a state like so many others that have gone before you like
we all must, but as always the how and the when occupy some with paramount
anxiety. No such anxiety need now plague you. Your time and place are awaiting
you in a matter of days, perhaps in less time.
J put his head
in his hands. No sobbing, but exasperatingly loud breathing, as if mounting an
attempt at a great physical exertion - that old “gird the loins.”
J (in a soft
wail) Oh can’t something so beautiful and forceful be without pain and capture?
H - The key is
“force.” There is always push back, please be sensible. Let me help you. There
is no crime here, yet, and no problem in crime to be solved, I do this to
prevent much other damage to a great many other people. Do consider them. Let
me take you to a safe place, and the box can be hidden until further
complications can be sorted out.
It was obvious J
was frozen into a lack of action. Mr. Holmes looked at me and then the door.
Yeah, little I could do here. I went upstairs to check out the Tube. It would
be Three Stooges most likely. I could tell Mom that Mr. Holmes had another
student needing a one-on-one. Maybe I could find some untethered high-in-sugar
edible. As it turned out, it was one of the better shorts, Curly was a military
honcho and Larry was a diplomat while Moe was a startlingly accurate Hitler.
Really it was fearfully good - like a horror show with calm prelude of what
would soon be an impossible to believe presentation of slaughter. Though, of
course, WWII wasn’t an entertainment.
Upon my return,
I discovered J and Mr. Holmes had left. Upon Mr. Holmes return he told me that
J was in hiding. The box was stowed safely somewhere. He was not going to tell
me where J was hiding. Mr. Holmes can’t be hurt by Them. Whereas I can be hurt
for short periods, but They could string together a series of hurts, so I
cannot know J’s whereabouts. Certainly if They knew of the Quantum Entity and
it’s being impossible to always control, they would rid the world of J. So,
then, how to dispose of or what to do with the box? I rather liked the idea of
it being Their problem. Soon enough They would find out the QE isn’t in the
box, it is “associated” with it. As noted, J doesn’t know exactly how he got
the box and the QE associated. Easiest would be to prove it has become
dissociated but how? Failing that, where is the box going to be?
Woe to me for
not inquiring where the box had got to. It turned out to be rather uncomfortingly
close. And, as far as I was concerned, it had personality. This “thing” had
begun to bother me and to usurp my time and thoughts. I wanted to not think of
the QE so I asked what is so hot about J’s crypto machine? And, anyway, decode
or decipher anything? Isn’t that a bit much? And to be better than Delphi?
Mr. Holmes - One
would have hoped it were not so. But now Janusz has gone where he should not
have. To withdraw now without addressing the Quantum Entity’s capabilities is
unconscionable. Those capabilities must cease, therefore, the Quantum Entity
must cease. As for Janusz, I hope he need not be dispensed with. Our opponents
must lose interest in him.
Me - You are an
expert in crypto. At least you have been reputed to be an author of a
“trifling” monograph with analysis of 160 ciphers. There was a case involving
stick men.
Do tell.
Well, not of
this era, I guess. Anyway, what’s the big deal? Can’t they keep secret their
secrets whoever they are?
Mr. H - Mostly
governments and their military have wanted secure communication for the sake of
dominance of others.
Me - Do tell.
Yes, though one
cannot be sure just where difficulties in code breaking, used loosely, now lie.
There is secrecy about the secrets of the British GCHQ and your National Security
Agency. Since they are secretive, we have no idea how good they may be.
So how do they
get on with it? I have (had) heard a smidgen or two about quantum computers,
and public and private keys and so on.
I know very
little of those. Historically it has been a race between encryption and
decryption. They have come up with some unbreakable messaging and then it gets
broken. Mary, Queen of Scots, had a code. She was beheaded. Microdots much
later were an aid in 1941, though there the message itself was hidden, whereas
more emphasis is placed on knowing there is a message and the dare to know its
meaning.
Caesar had a
cipher. Monoalphabetic substitution has been done. Frequency analysis was the
major avenue to counter the encryption. Along came the Vigenère cipher, and it
seemed it had been done, no breakage could be possible. Prior to and after the
then latest efforts, long ago governments employed Black Chambers to crack
secrets. Best was Geheime Kabinets-Kanzlei in Vienna.
No group broke
the Vigenère cipher. Babbage did it and by cunning. He found repetition because
the English to be rendered was repetitive. And there were factors of length in
regard to the keyword. But he got no credit for this discovery. Kept it to
himself. Kusiski was credited. Both realized the cipher could be broken,
because the key had to have meaning.
Janusz is after
meaning too. The utilitarian kind that facilitates power. To have enough of it,
power, there is our capacity to interpret and respond that becomes overwhelmed
if the power be immense and that response and interpretation in the service of
meaning is taken over by machines. Then meaning becomes what the machines
indicate it may be. They then define “power.”
The Quantum
Entity may be omitting what is obvious to its kind, like Champollion realizing
scribes were omitting vowels on the cartouches of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, while
Ventri, building on the work of Kober, found that in Linear B, the “s” ending
was deliberately being suppressed since it was well enough known then that it
should be there. Most probably the Quantum Entity is a list with no exclusions.
It encompasses all items, if scientific in Newton-Hamilton-Fermi-Einstein
fashion. If not scientific, all is sorted into assigned functions to become
“knowledge” which is of little use to it. It is not alive, nor can it die. It
provides “history” as a fiction. It connects the dots, lines become lines of
lines and matrices spring forth in differing dimensions. It can deal in thought
but not Mind, which is where Janusz comes in.
Me - So to be
rid of the QE, we must be rid of J?
H- Not
necessarily.
Me - So the QE
knows no past, no future, “now” simply “is,” not sandwiched between past and
future. Metaphorically in quantum terms one could bend the past into the future
and live out one’s past in the future.
H - Odd
expression.
Me - There, for
QE, all is done very fast, there are no speed limits. The power J hungers so
abjectly for, is frightful, gigantic, monumental and decisive. There is no
progress or achievement since these depend on the slowness of process. Earth
gone in a blink, no realization of what had been done. There is no experience
to be realized. So it has no development, no start, no end. No birth, no death.
All of it “is.” Right?
H - Hm, you are
grappling with a great unknown.
Me - Anywho, we
assemble and disassemble, for it, no such thing, all “is.” It doesn’t affect us
unless we provoke it. Our research, by J and others, is reaching to it. We, in
a sense, create it by discovering it. The QE may not be representative, it
could be much worse.
H - Perhaps you
are glossing over extraordinary complexity rather roughly.
M – It is idle
speculation, no referent. It is worrisome and bothersome. I don’t want to stick
with it. Hm, well then how about a game
of chess? I can’t sleep just yet.
H - Certainly.
M - May I be
Black? I have been persistently playing as White.
H - In these
circumstances? But of course.
Actually Black
is red (almost pink) since it is a plastic set, the cheapest, and White is
cream. We went into a Queen’s Gambit. I had tempi but his piece activity was
compromising my desire for a quiet positional game. He gave up a piece for the
attack and to clear the center. I recognized his advantage but he had to do
more, he had to win. Of tremendous power was his Queen, though she was at the
edge of the board, she raked along the center towards my King who sheepishly
had to stumble along and get behind two Pawns and call on a Knight that needed
to be much closer. Mr. Holmes had potential galore and could make it a short
game. His potential was paralyzing my formulation of variations. My move
calculations were into a not favorable endgame, I had to prevent a move making
my stance worse. What to do? How to negate or neutralize such potential? But
then Mr. Holmes offered to adjourn the game. What a good guy! I accepted with
alacrity. And then to bed.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I dreamed : I
was being splashed with blue ink, it came spurting out of a model Detroit car
as it rolled toward me. It was going to crush me! But a Queen approached, I was
dry and no car. She raised a knife with a short blade above her head and threw
it at me - I got it in the forehead. It spilt my head open, not in half. One
side was a winner, the other was a bigger portion, the loser. Doubt was invited
in and I got a dollar a page. I was eating dog food out of a can like Victor
Jory. No career for me. The test I knew but not the answers. I was looking for
the answers on a tic tac toe board. I was X and the O’s were blue lights with
toggle switches - off and on, blinking and winking, thinking and mocking,
devious and insincere and malevolent. Moe wanted to hug me and I said no
mustache but he screamed he would lose his personality. Mr. Holmes was down at
the far left with all the other space in the Universe taken up by a huge wad of
paper trash of almost google-plex size. It was data. It was swelling despite
already having all room to itself except for Mr. Holmes. Tiny Mr. Holmes had a
machete with a long blade. He was ready to swing and cut into the wad which
could not move and so it could not be the Prime Mover or the Leviathan. Such
vastness could not be uncorked. It must include the stupid. Of what use is a
Stupid Universe? If it has immense intelligence from superb also supernatural
knowledge then it must include the stupid. It was without innovation, lacking a
twist. All things in their places are the best (Aristotle). Take care of your
tools and they will take care of you. Too bad, so sad, we got fire, fission,
wheels, flight, chemicals, orange blades of grass, civilization, culture,
bipeds and trees, single cells, Big Bang vs Big Boil and poof! atoms and less,
more fragments, it was gone and defragged? Mr. Holmes wasn’t swinging, he was
shaking, me. I was awake. Awake? Well not dreaming.
Mr. Holmes - Up
now. Breakfast. And he was shaking me by the shoulders. Awake? Breakfast, I
daresay it would be just the thing.
Me - If only you had a longer machete.
Mr. Holmes -
What?
Me - OK, OK I’m
going. Up I go and maybe awake.
I stepped
through the open door and started the slight left turn and one step up to the
lower landing and saw something. It was there on the floor at the back of the
recessed darkness under the flight of stairs (a quick right and up from the
landing). It maybe was where others before us had put gardening tools. There
were no outside sheds. What I saw was blue. A little bigger than a quarter. It
was hazy, like clouds in front of it. It was watching me. Was I awake? I saw a
dim gleam of metal beside the light. It was the toggle switch and it was up!
Meaning it was on!
I felt like I
could die any second. Too sudden for me. Why now? I wasn’t prepared. This was
unfair. I backed away to the door. Not looking at anything except the blue
light, the indicator. I pushed the door open by reaching behind me. Mr. Holmes
made an indistinct sound. I was nearly in the room still backing away going
toward the bed. Mr. Holmes came over. The door had shut, he opened it - Good
heavens!
He came over to
me. I would not look at him. Why did he bring that damn thing here? I said
nothing.
Do understand my
dear boy. Go upstairs, call this number (on a paper he gave me). Call Janusz
and tell him to bring his typewriter and paper. Tell him it is an extremely
urgent emergency! The thing has exerted itself!
I would not go
through the door. I put my chair under the East window and grunted my way
outside. I returned the same way.
Mr. Holmes - The
box could not be far away. It was placed in a neglected area. Janusz did not
know it was here. I beseech you my old friend, I felt it was for the best.
I croaked -
Really?
In a very short
time, J arrived. He knew it was there, that is, he saw it on his way in. He got
it and put it on my card table. He had my chair and the typewriter was in front
of the box. Mr. Holmes stood by his chair. He was looking at the door. With
regret? He continued watching the door. Until I yelped. I stared at the box, at
the eye, from a far corner of the bed, I really really wanted to be anywhere
but here.
Mr. Holmes, in a
commanding voice began to speculate about the Etruscans, or so I thought it was
speculation. What the heck?
Mr. Holmes -
They had become identifiable by 700 BC. Mystery about them was tainted by later
corrosive contact with the Romans. But the language remains a mystery. Could be
a connection with shreds from Lemnos in the North Aegean Sea. Then there is
Raetic from an Alpine region north of Verona. I wonder if it is hearing this?
All the better if it does.
continued Mr.
Holmes - Janusz (who had only been staring at the typewriter, no looks at the
box) please insert your paper and recite after me: “How and why was the
Etruscan language not Indo-European?”
J did as he was
told. Thereafter, he then went back to staring at the typewriter. Mr. Holmes
resumed watching the door. My vision was glued to the blue sinister and silent
light. Nietzsche would have liked what could be beyond... beyond whatever you
cared to name like the box with the light. Maybe I was going to vomit.
Something was going to happen. Maybe ten minutes went by. I wished for some
release, I was too young to die, so what else was there to do?
I let out a
yelp. Good word, if a cross between a yell and a cry (Victorian usage) for
help. I gulped and it hurt an awful lot.
It moved! J and
Mr. Holmes snapped a look at me, then at the box. The blue light was out. But
the sound of the toggle switch, looking like a small baseball bat, going down,
shutting off, frightened me and startled me. Holy cow, it was loud! Rather
unnecessarily I pointed at the box. Now I felt fine. I smiled. I suppressed a
laugh. I thought it would hurt J’s feelings. But then he was the jerk that
could have ruined us all. Now I felt like slugging him.
Calmly, Mr.
Holmes said to J - You have a fine machine. What remains is worth much and will
be a powerful influence in its field.
J didn’t say a
word. He carefully put the typewriter in its case. He left the paper. I kept it
as a memento, an exhibit. J picked up the box and left.
No breakfast.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I sleepwalked
through normalizing the next few days. Mr. Holmes put a tiny ad on our page
proclaiming the superiority of the Holmes Factor over any other crypto
technique - should it come to primes. He was like the Queen in our chess game -
in a position of enormous potential. A bluff? Sherlock Holmes? Consider the
track record.
He also visited
the Hobby and Invention shop where J and John were getting on with it. Mr.
Holmes was there for a short time and then left by the back way. John by then
was tending to affairs behind the front counter. Then a Zeegler entered the
shop. John alertly watched the smiling Zeegler. Then another Zeegler entered
the shop. John reached under the counter for the revolver kept there for
certain situations. Next to the revolver was the police button. The first Zeegler
held up his hand, smiled, and said “No need.” The second Zeegler turned around
and faced John and also smiled and held up his hands and said “No need.” John
did not touch the revolver nor press the button. Then more Zeeglers entered.
One came from the back room. In all there were ten Zeeglers in the shop so the
shop was packed with Zeeglers. All were animatedly asking questions about
merchandise. All seemed well informed as the questions were to the point, no
fluff. In all they bought a ton of equipment and supplies. All paid cash. They
exited as a group except for one who had a radio in each hand that we put down
as he began to remove his disguise.
I actually have
no need for these radios, I get the news I need from the weather report, and as
he said that, he glanced at the newspaper open on the counter to the weather
page. Nevertheless, please accept this purchase price and may I donate it to a
raffle on behalf of Janusz so that he might start up his translation and editing
company? The last of the disguise had been removed.
Mr. Holmes!
I tarried a bit
out back before setting off. I saw the visitation unfold. Tell Janusz I will
match whatever is raised in the raffle that will benefit his company.
Most generous of
you, sir.
Ah, but I am not
of the peerage, though your appreciation is acknowledged.
Later I asked
how Mr. Holmes was prepared to don a Zeegler disguise.
After the Moonlight
and the Arrow of Time adventure, as you term it, I placed certain items in my
coat’s vast inner pockets in order to be prepared for such an eventuality,
however slight I regarded the prospect.
No arm bands or
headbands?
Certainly not.
Much later, with
the dust more settled and the motes long gone, I craved a chess game, a truly
absorbing one.
Me - How about a
nice game of chess? Sure beats Global Thermonuclear War. Or tic tac toe?
Eh?
Chess it is. May
I have White?
Let us endorse
the time honored approach.
He picked up a cream
pawn and a red pawn. Now he put them behind his back and then extended his
fists fingers down. I did not want to touch him, so I pointed.
I lost. As
always, Mr. Holmes pulled no punches. In compensation I wanted breakfast. That
other breakfast had been missed and served without me. I went upstairs. I asked
Mom for breakfast. Ordinarily such a request was instantly dismissed as
foolishness. There were rigid times for the three meals per day. Not there?
Didn’t like it and said so? Then in either case no ill feelings, but you didn’t
eat. Maybe the stress of events in the QE vein had been showing. She knew
something had been up. I needed to get down and stay there. I got breakfast.
All the trimmings. Nothing was said except I thanked Mom. Breakfast as the
emblem of Normality. I could resume.
The
End
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