For reference:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_sale:_baby_shoes,_never_worn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Paperclips
It was three in the morning. Why the fuck was he ringing?
Casting off the dreamworld where I was a giant – or something, it was something big, anyway – and coming reluctantly back into the mundane world, I accepted his call.
Predictably - even in my gargantuan sleep-filled state, I could predict it - he started his spiel with no hello, no apology, no preamble:
“I’ve done it! You’re going to love it! The saddest story ever told! Everyone thought I couldn’t do it in 6 words… but I could and I did and I could!
“Johannes,” I screwed my cyclopean eyes shut and tried not to let the fury show.
But then I realised I was a normal sized man and it was 3 in the morning and he couldn’t see me.
He continued, “They all said it couldn’t be done but I’ve fucking done it. Me! Johannes!” It all seemed a little redundant.
“JOHANNES!” I let the fury into my voice. Who cared? I allowed myself to curl my lip in the way you always hated. At this point, I didn’t need to hide my feelings from my tone and I sure as shit didn’t need to hide it from my face.
I took the speaker away from my ear. Feeling the pressure in my bladder, I knew I would have woken up soon anyway. Not much sleep lost by his interruption. A small blessing - a gift from a tardigrade.
I could just make out a blur of words of billowing from the phone. “Genius,” was one. “Epochal” was another. “Held in the hands of the Lord!” were some others.
“Johannes,” I said again. Third time, as they always say, was the charm.
“Yes?” he said.
My bleary larynx winced its way into the conversation. “I need to piss. I’ll call you back…”
I hung up.
_________________________________________________________________________
Once pissed, I was awake. Fully. What the tardigrade gives, it can take away.
I tried to snuggle back into bed but the bed was no longer that kind of bed anymore. I was no longer Pantagruel, just a regular man, and the membrane of sleep could no longer be punctured.
It wasn’t like I has anyone around I complain to about being woken up and, as I said, I was awake now. Fully. So I rang him back
“What, Johannes, may I ask, is your world changing idea?” I inquired, rubbing my brow.
If a voice’s eyes could bulge, his did then. “You know how Hemingway was challenged to write the saddest story ever using only six words?”
I wanted to tell him it wasn’t Hemingway who wrote that story but – even at 3:04 in the morning and as much as I may bitch - it was nice to hear Johannes so happy and I didn’t want to rain on his parade. But, then again, I couldn’t lie to him about that story’s provenance. I fudged by grunting.
*Grunt* I said. He took this for assent.
“Well, I’ve one-upped him. I’ve written a sadder one. In just 6 words. Do you want to hear?”
It wasn’t a question. Why did he ask it as a question if there was only one answer?
“Sure,” I said.
“Ok,” he said and paused. I assume it was dramatically. I don’t know. I was busy staring at my ceiling. There was nothing dramatic about it.
He spoke:
For Sale: Paperclips, never used.
I sighed to myself. As quietly as I could.
“I hate to blow my own horn but it’s so much sadder than a dead baby. I feel there’s a Nobel in it for me. I wonder if I’ll be knighted? I’d probably have to turn it down, for moral reasons, you know, but Sir Johannes Birnehaus iii has such a great ring to it, don’t you think? And..”
I couldn’t take it. I tried. I really tried. I tried just to say, well done and very clever and all that but all this boasting after he was so clearly wrong?
“Johannes, listen to me!” I snapped. “Firstly, Hemingway didn’t write that short story!”
Damn it. Oh well, it would all come pouring out of me anyway, like so much Brobdingnagian verbal vomit. Presently, I continued, “Secondly, you need to know that stupid fucking story in the first place for your story to work.
“AND THEN you have to know...” I took a deep breath and held in my sigh. I was trying. I really was. “Then you have also have to know what the Universal Paperclip Machine is for your story to work.”
I was kind of annoyed that I actually understood his story to be honest. I had spent too much time with him; thought too much like him. Oh well.
“And the original story is sad – that’s if anyone think it’s sad – because it’s about one DEAD BABY. Which everyone thinks is sad.”
He tried to cut in but I stopped him.
“Yes, I know yours is about the whole planet being dead because the Universal Paperclip Machine has made so many paperclips that there’s no other resources left and everyone’s died so no one can the paperclips.”
I heard him say, “So you did get it?” but I wasn’t done.
“But it’s based on sci-fi fantasy story and it’s too abstract for any… ummm … emotional heft.
“And finally… finally… it’s only five fucking words, Johannes!”
We sat there. Well, I assume he sat there as well. I would say the air was thick between us but we were many miles apart. Probably just some thin air meandering about between our beds
Eventually Johannes said, “But you thought it was a good story?”
“Pretty good, Johannes” I replied. “Pretty good.”
Later, I lay there thinking. I couldn’t leave it alone.
I began to think. And it’s hard not to. I am a petty, petty man. And I now needed Johannes to know I could outdo him.
I thought, it’s the rhythm that makes it.
I thought, it’s the six words thar are important.
I thought, it’s the punctuation that’s paramount.
I thought, it’s got to seem pithy.
I thought, it’s got to appeal to fucking morons.
I thought of yet another stupid, apocryphal tale which had Picasso charging thousands of pesos for a quick doodle and when questioned over the price saying, “Why yes, it took me only 30 seconds to draw, but a lifetime to learn.”
So, what would my take be? My take honed by a lifetime of precision?
Something modern. Something weird. Something that referenced the riddle of the original. Something that would reply to the original’s implication with a referential wink and grin.
Something the morons would lap up.
I texted Johannes:
Not dead: baby born without feet.
No comma, he replied.
Fuck you, I thought.