continued…

I suppose if buildings can turn inside out then perhaps they can be held responsible under the rule of law. After all this was Sleepytown.

I decided to visit the House of Legislation and see what kind of laws would stop a building from acting up. As I walked in the big hall containing the Law Chambers I heard a great deal of “Hrruummpphing”, mumbling and shuffling of papers.

The hall was circular in shape and sloped up on the sides like a small-scale sports arena. There were seats and desks from the floor all the way up to the ceiling and every one of them was being used by a busy mob of well-dressed men and women. These then were the Representatives of Sleepytown’s House of Legislation. At the bottom of this loud, crowded bowl was a round floor area about twenty feet in diameter. In the very center of this pit was a speaker’s podium with several microphones.

There was a great deal of commotion and general confusion going on down in the pit. On one side were ten or twelve overweight men and women in very expensive looking business suits fighting and wrestling each other in an attempt to get on the podium. On the other side were ten or twelve men and women of similar bearing, but they were rolling dice, flipping cards and occasionally shooting each other in the legs and feet with very small gold plated revolvers.

Finally it looked as if there was a winner. I couldn’t tell which group he was from, but as soon as he mounted the speaking pulpit everyone else engaged in the center pit walked or limped away, sat down or just fell over on the floor from exhaustion or death.

He was clearly worn out and his clothes were disheveled. He was sweating profusely and bleeding from several gashes on his forehead. Nevertheless he looked rather pleased to be on the podium. He began to speak.

“Fellow Legislators! I have here a message from a quite prestigious source. If you will be so kind as to indulge me for a few moments I will read aloud the contents of the message.”

He paused briefly, put his glasses on, smoothed his hair down and wiped the blood and sweat off his face. Gradually the place grew completely quiet as everyone waited for the message to be read.

“To the Representatives of The House of Legislature. I happen to be somewhat very interested in finding out how many extremely voluminous repositories of information in this space-time continuum still maintain a “compendium file” containing more information than it would be otherwise humanly possible to keep track of in an orderly and, as it were, timely fashion, always, of course, assuming that said “compendium file” does not become so bloated as to acquire enough mass to sustain it’s own gravitational field, and therefore, collapse under it’s own density forming a small, local black hole, thereby causing all the information in said “compendium file” to be stored in a much more efficient and space saving manner, albeit, of course, said information would then be completely inaccessible to the outside universe, which is a situation that may, mind you, have some unique uses unto itself by causing anyone interested in obtaining information in said “compendium/collapsed black hole” to be invited to enter into said “compendium file/collapsed black hole” in order to “access” the information contained therein.

“Now, it is our statistically drawn average of opinions that compels us to put forward that this form of researching should, of course, be severely limited to “pure academians” who have no interest in applying any of their vastly acquired information to the rest of the universe-at-large. They should, obviously, be quite content to purvey and consume the enormous stores of information available in said “compendium file/collapsed black hole”.

“Thanks backward and forward in time, both, in advance and afterwards, for your undoubtedly friendly, but useless help and/or sadly misinformed, irrelevant advice. Please do not waste MY valuable time by trying to respond to me personally even if you’d like to do so. Unlike YOU, I have more important things to do with my space/time than deal with trivial, meandering minutiae disguised in the form of an Official Looking Message. Simply make it impossible for any other loosely defined group of statistically drawn organisms to possess information content control and possible for the House of Philosophy to get the necessary public funding to control all information content.”

“From The All-Knowing Head of Tiny But Mightily Important Bits Of Information at The Sleepytown University House of Philosophy Speaker Handy Sester,” he paused for a moment and drew a long breath.

“Fellow Representatives, from Handy Sester, himself!” The representative pounded the podium with his fist and shook the letter overhead with his other hand. He was obviously impressed with receiving an actual letter from someone he considered very noteworthy.

The other Representatives were equally impressed and started talking furiously amongst themselves in reaction to hearing this letter read.

Questions began forming in my mind: Does this Speaker Sester want information or not? Why was the letter so condescending but so well received? There was an obvious lack of respect for the Representatives to whom it was sent. It was strange to hear a request for assistance and funding offered in such an antagonistic manner. But it came from Sleepytown’s University meaning that this Speaker in the House of Philosophy Handy Sester surely must be aware of his own paradoxical position. How far does self-delusion go in this place? Exactly how much can a person hide from themselves in their own mind? And exactly what was the meaning of those assertions about information content control?

None of these questions were asked by any of the assembled Legislators though. I suppose they didn’t think they were relevant.

At one point another Representative rose and said, “This is all very impressive and I am sure we can make time in the near future to work on passing laws that will assist Speaker Sester in his noble work. For now, however, we have much more pressing issues to deal with. Namely the question of prosthetic limbs.”

There were immediate and loud cries of “Hear! Hear!” shouted in approval.

The representative speaker that had risen yelled over the noise, “As I see it everyone in need of a prosthetic limb should be able to get one provided by the government. Remember not to forget that everyone will probably at some point in his or her lifetime need one. Especially if they have been a moral person!”

Another representative chimed in, “And if they aren’t moral enough to need one we can arrange for them to become moral enough to need one in which case we can provide it for them.”

Another representative rose and said, “Fellow Representatives, I consider it well advised and perfectly true that a moral person would need to make use of a prosthetic limb. But, there is no need to force them to need one or force them to use one provided by the government.”

This was retorted to with, “As long as you agree that it’s moral to need one and we should provide them to those that want them then what do we care what you think?”

This sort of thing went on for a while with the representatives bickering back and forth over strange side issues while agreeing on every major premise. The main thing I didn’t understand was all the emphasis on prosthetic limbs.

In the front of the podium was a doorway I hadn’t noticed yet. I figured this was as good a cue as any to leave.