Tuesday, March 15, 2011

bumbling through the fields of yore...

"Other than the muon vodka, I'm sure we can come to some kind of arrangement", said the Yalzuleak, its seven eyes kind of vague and red from weeks of sleeplessness and exertion, pausing over the dozens of nearly inscrutable legal documents written in chickenscratch. Literally. The Yospheni polity decided eighteen years ago that all its legal documents would be written in ink by dancing chickens on sheets of the toughest parchment. The legal code was translated into chickenscratch in the course of a concerted five year programme. I can't read the stuff. The Yalzuleak probably can't. Reading chickenscratch is a much sought after skill these days. The Chickenscratch Philologists' Union (CPU), has a dedicated corps of readers of chickenscratch. They squint at the parchment. They peer and ogle at it. They turn it upside down and backwards and view it in a mirror with a green filter while Ormestrio Van Salvwarby's infamous symphony Uzyphreunque dell'Zarathirio plays backwards on a dodecaphonic hyperdigital multistereo deck. The Yalzuleak shrugs, downs some more superfluid helium, and eructates. Getting this contract (with the possible exception of the muon vodka deal) is likely to make the Yalzuleak a lot of ducats, if you know what I mean, nudge nudge, wink wink. And for gambling? Advanced mathematical supersimulations on distributed biological quantum computers of ducks attacking a wombat on a calm midwinters' eve? Nope. More superfluid liquid helium to get drunk on. Your acetyl-CoA habit looks minor in comparison.

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