The Adventures of Wiley Weasel
Gulpy and Phylus Memo- Detectives at Large
Memoirs of a Patent Pending
“The most insignificant present has over the most insignificant past the advantage of reality.” – Arthur Schopenhauer.
Chapter 1: Weasels at Home
Wily Weasel was a wise, retired weasel of eight. Everyday he dressed in black and white striped silk pajamas. He had been employed in a laboratory for the majority of his career and had picked up a lot of knowledge about spatialization and photons and even Einstein’s flexitime theory.
Now Wily lived at home with his wife and young son, Wily Jr. Upon his retirement he had declared that he was going to learn the only other language as universal as math- music. He planned to write a famous symphony in his first month at home. Instead, he had learned the Maple Leaf Rag on the piano and then become bored with it. Now he spent most of his time cajoling Wily Jr. to skip school so that he would have someone to talk to while his wife did her errands and cleaned the hole.
Mrs. Weasel didn’t appreciate Wily’s behavior, and put an end to it by telling Wily Jr. that if he didn’t go to school he would be destined to hang around an old woman’s neck for eternity. So most day’s Jr. went to school while Wily read the latest issue of The Mustela Journal of Science and sent mean jokes on mink and ferrets to his friends by e-mail.
Chapter 2: Jr. Makes a Discovery
One warm day in May Mrs. Weasel went out chicken hunting with her friends and asked her husband to walk Jr. over the hill to school. Once Jr. had eaten breakfast, Wily and he started up the path towards school.
“Where is your school anyway?” wondered Wily, who had never been himself.
“On the other side of the hill, you can’t see it from here” replied Jr.
“And every day you walk over the hill to get there?”
“Yes, it’s the fastest way and I’m always too late to go around” replied Jr.
“Unbelievable! My very own son is an idiot!”
Jr. had no response to this. He figured his dad was about to go on one of his rants, so he sat patiently and watched a butterfly flutter up to the top of the sunny hill.
“Well, if you’re not learning anything at school, I guess I better teach you. See, son, the fastest way is not over the hill, it’s through it in a straight line through it. Now help me dig.”
They dug most of the morning and by lunchtime they had made it halfway though the hill. Since Jr. wasn’t likely to make it to school that day, they split his packed lunch. Wily had forgotten to remove his silk pajamas, and they were a dark muddy brown.
“Back to work!” he commanded once the sandwiches were gone.
So they continued to dig through the hill until Jr. felt something funny. First he thought they were intersecting with another tunnel, and he hoped this was true because it would save him some work. But the dirt was solid as he continued digging. Wily felt it too, and he put his ear against the wall of dirt and heard a vague sucking sound, like from a vacuum cleaner. He pawed at the dirt a bit more and suddenly the dirt fell away and he and Jr. were sucked into a long dark tunnel.
It wasn’t a tunnel though, because they weren’t falling. They were going forward at a great speed, and when he looked beside him, the grains of dirt that had stumbled into the hole with him looked like they were floating beside him. Jr. thought maybe his dad was right about digging after all, and that he’d be shot from the tunnel into his school- hopefully in time for the afternoon snack. But the tunnel went on much longer than it would have taken to get to school, so Jr. asked his dad where they were.
“Ah! I’ve heard about these in the laboratory but I have never sampled one first hand before!” replied Wily in delight. “It appears, my son, that we have stumbled upon a wormhole. Holius wormallus is the scientific name, if my memory is correct.”
“Wormhole?” asked Jr.. “It’s awfully dark in here. Are you sure it’s not a black hole??”
“Well,” pontificated Wily, “I don’t feel any g-forces, and I don’t see any garbage that other stars have disposed of.”
“No g-forces?? Then what was that whooshing?” asked Jr.
“Oh sorry, that was me,” said Wiley, blushing. “Well, it’s dark because we’re moving faster than light. Haven’t you ever heard of que chevere radiation?”
“Wait,” interjected Jr. “Don’t you mean charenkov radiation?”
“Yes, yes,” said Wily impatiently. “Anyway, the point is, let me explain to you how it works. Scientists in the deserts of Woomera, Australia, found that particles in the cosmic ray showers they were observing moved faster than the speed of light through air.”
“Doesn’t that go against your idol, Albert EineKleineNachtweasel? That nothing goes faster than light?” asked Jr..
“But you’re forgetting, young Jr., that that’s only in a vacuum, through the air, or through a—heh heh—hole in the dirt! It’s quite possible to travel faster than light. We could be traveling light years as we speak each word! This weasel/wormhole is by no means a vacuum! So technically, we could be universes away! I agree with EineKleineNachtweasel that nothing can cross the light barrier! But see, wormholes never move slower than the speed of light, so it never has to pass it!”
“But, we moved slower than the speed of light before, so how did we cross the barr—“
“SHHHH!” said Wily. “I think we’re coming up to something!”
Chapter 3: In the Land of the Tachyons
Slam!
Their heads slammed on a soft and moist earth. Beads of sweat accumulated on Wily’s eyebrows. Jr.’s eyes adjusted to the orange-ish light.
They were in some sort of sparkling tropical rainforest. A giant red sun levitated on the horizon.
“We must be in a universe faaaaar away!” said Wily. “Hey, look fireflies!”
But these little balls of light behaved the opposite of fireflies. Instead of blinking on and off, they blinked backwards.
Wily licked his finger and held it up in the air. “Hmmm,” he said, furrowing his brow, “must be tachyons. In this universe, they must somehow be visible to the naked eye…” he muttered.
“What?” said Jr., sitting down on a rock and putting his head in his paws.
Wily nearly jumped in the air. “Haven’t you read Roger Clay’s 1974 Manifesto??! Tachyons are the only things that can travel faster than the speed of light, even in a vacuum! Now, lets consult the old nursery rhyme I taught you…”
There was a young weasel named Bright
Whose speed was far faster than light
She set out one day in a relative way
And returned on the previous night!
“Wait!” said Jr., suddenly revived. “So you’re saying these tachyons can travel faster than light? That means we could somehow use them to send a message back to our old selves warning us not to go through the hill!”
Wily smiled with pride. “A brilliant idea, son! Especially since wormholes are capricious, and flicker on and off as they please. So there’s no telling how long we’ll be stuck in this rainforest, drinking dew off of banana leaves like cretins!” Wiley smiled gleefully. “Anyway, we’re just going to have to figure out how to manipulate these tachyons to relay our message for us!”
Suddenly a group of the out-putting lights gathered together close to Jr. and Wily.
“You don’t have to manipulate us to help you!” they chorused in pre-pubescent voices. “We’re conscious tachyons who have super-evolved to construct any method of communication after observation! We’ve been watching you this whole time! We’ll send the message back for you! We’ve already learned how to open the wormhole whenever we please! So we’ll be able to travel through it to warn your past selves!”
“Wait!” Jr. hollered. “We shouldn’t send a message to Wily that he shouldn’t dig through the hill, or else he’ll be too tempted! You see, tachyons,” (he whispered at this point), “he is a retired weasel with nothing to do. If you’re going to bother to travel back at super-luminal speeds, you should probably relay the message to my mother, who will always do as she’s told!”
“Good thinking, Jr.!” chorused the tachyons.
And then, they were gone.
“Little tachyons! Little tachyons!?” cried Wily, who had been entranced by a fluttering butterfly.
“Oh, never mind.” said Jr. “Let’s go look for some dinner.”
Chapter 4: Weasels at Home (Take 2)
Mrs. Weasel served bread and jam to Wily and Jr. and put on her hat to go chicken-hunting. Suddenly, a tiny, pre-pubescent voice in the back of her mind croaked: “Don’t smoke! I mean…don’t go out today! Walk your son to school! Shun the faaaathhher…shun the faaathhher…”
Never being one to disregard her conscious, or ignore orders, Mrs. Weasel said “Wily…um…don’t worry, I’ll walk Jr. to school. You can read your newspaper.”
“Not chicken hunting?” exploded Wily. “I command you to go chicken-hunting! I don’t think I could LIVE without an nice, juicy chicken with my supper! I’ve been looking forward to it for weeks!”
“But, I go chicken-hunting every other day!” said Mrs. Weasel.
“Even so, who are you to take away the only pleasure of this old, retired weasel’s day?” said Wily.
“Fine, fine!” said Mrs. Weasel. “I’ll go chicken-hunting. Just remember to get Jr. to school on time! Today’s class picture day!”
So they started out down the path, to the hill.
