Tag Archives: Experiment

ABSURDIS EXTREME // Case Study #571 [01/04/2043] by B.A. Loney

This is the story of three cabbageheads: Cauliflower, Romanesco and Kale.

Cauliflower was the most effeminate of them. Most people had him pegged as being gay, but they were wrong. He simply wasn’t your typical manly man type. He openly enjoyed high teas, cross-stitching and frothy, scented bubble baths with rose petals. Oh, and he liked to wear pink in public.

Romanesco, of course, was the one most prone to flummadiddle. On a whim, he’d visited a couple of lectures about equiangular spirals, Fibonacci and determinism, and made absolutely nothing of it. Nevertheless, he was fearfully proud of his learnings. Also, he loved to wax lyrical about the wonders of nature, naturally identifying himself as one of them.

Kale was the serious one. He was a fan of lukewarm tea, Meccano, and the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. He also owned the world’s largest collection of abacuses which he dusted daily. He would never smile, preferring to nod slightly whenever something pleased him—which wasn’t often. He also slept on a wooden slab because mattresses were too soft and would always mess with his back.

So, as you can see, they were vivid persons; each in their own way. Maybe they weren’t the best persons in the world but they’d sinned in good company at least. But now to the main question. A question of cabbage salad.

Firstly, what is cabbage salad? Is it a salad made purely of cabbage? Does there need to be more than one cabbage involved or can it just be the best bits of the one cabbage? Can other salady things such as corn and tomato slices be included? Can the cabbage salad be nude or does it need dressing?

Secondly, is cabbage salad better than other kinds of salad? Is it more regal than, say, Caesar salad? Is it more worthwhile eating than fruit or bean salad? Is it superior to potato salad because it can be eaten during even a famine? If only the scientists had known.

Speaking of such, science is the study of observed phenomena. While we were preparing this scientific content, a very irresponsible goat came along and gobbled up our central subjects of study, Cauliflower, Romanesco and Kale. So, we’ll need to stop the experiment here and make another trip to the supermarket.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

ABSURDIS EXTREME // Case Study #32 [12/01/2109] by B.A. Loney

This is the story of three proofs: the biggest one, the blue one and the round one.

One of my assistants left them on my table without any identifying labels, and after this made a kerplunky little hole in the water. That’s right, she stepped into the loo bowl and sank out of sight. She never did return. Perhaps this nightmare ordeal had gotten too much. Not that I blame her.

Anyway, I had to work.

The biggest proof had more than a whiff of arsine sulfide about it. I sneezed, and placed it back on the table. Didn’t want to mess with that one.

I decided not to smell the blue proof because it looked like a dead Smurf that’d been put through a blender then snap frozen in the shape of a bow tie. I licked it instead. It tasted like… a dead Smurf that’d been put through a blender then snap frozen in the shape of a bow tie.

The dots were starting to connect.

Oh, the round proof? The less said about that the better, I guess. Let’s just say that when you squeezed it, it sounded like an asthmatic gerbil dying in an iron lung. It gave me such a fright that I nearly dropped the thing.

Did I mention that everything was becoming much clearer now?

I snapped on rubber gloves and protective goggles, took a rack from the storage cupboard, and cautiously placed the proofs upon it. Then I squelched through watery loo muck to my supervisor’s office and put the rack with the proofs on the table in front of him. He looked askance at said proofs, then at me as if I’d played an extremely offensive practical joke.

I shook my head in a helpless ‘no’, and added a shrug in case the head shake wasn’t enough. I was deadly earnest. What were these proofs actually proof of? And how did we know that they were proofs in the first place? Wasn’t the burden of proof upon these proofs to prove that they were proofs?

So, at that point I did what any sane scientist would have done: I made a kerplunky little hole in the water and stepped in. Yes, that’s right, I stepped into the loo bowl and sank out of sight as my supervisor looked helplessly on.

And the proofs? Well, no one knows what’s happened to them since.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2019

a Kinetic tattoo (Fragment #021)

OK… Our acquaintance with Henry was idiotic, like any acquaintance of two idiots. (I omit all pungent details of our acquaintance, with your permission. I’ll try to be brief today… My lovely pious professor doesn’t like ‘too many fucking letters’ and I don’t want to hear again where I should shove my essay this time)

Henry was chuckling at my liberal education and letting himself make ambiguous jokes about my thinness. He was an intolerable, nasty brat… Henry was a classic geek! We therefore immediately became good friends.

I had just outlived my arbitrary half-life period and had a lot of free time till my next conscription. Henry and his bold projects were the best way to overcome my mental slumber. I became a habitue of his garage and a guinea-pig for his crazy experiments.

“Throb with your mind, not your ass!”

It was a slogan of the project ‘A kinetic tattoo’. My first and my favorite project with Henry… I was insisting on a holmium because my kin hates silver. But Henry was adamant despite my entreaties – only silver nitrate! I surrendered and took off all my piercings. I wanted to have a barcode like my favorite Hitman… but Henry again won. I got a big Celtic pattern from my wrist to my elbow. But I wasn’t offended. Anyway, it was cool! It was fucking great COOOOOOOOOL!

I was able to turn on light bulbs with just my touch. But it was a trifle, just a childish trick. Spoiling household appliances was more interesting. The alarm clock on the nightstand, the cell-phone on the table, the radio receiver… My touch was deadly to them. I felt like Midas. But the most mind-blowing ability was telekinesis. My tattoo was able to generate a magnetic field and to move small metallic objects. It was a great fun!

Unfortunately, in two weeks my epidermis regenerated and the tattoo vanished… Henry published an article about it in the current issue of ‘Hacker’ and forgot about this project. But I haven’t forgotten.

(Hmm… too many letters again… Damn!) (to be continued)

by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2014