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time travel channel
the terrible fact as freyr understands it is that nobody loves sloane as much as sloane loves sloane and that makes him a perfect candidate for time travel that and the fact that he's guilty of mound robbery at winterville in mississippi and that the state has sentenced him to death for the murder of a highway patrolman in pocahontas so if sloane dies or disappears it won't rub anyone the wrong way or as he likes to say he's imperfect but so is our system of ground transportation where 40000 die every year and so is our system of trade where one third of the world starves dies of exposure or just freaking evaporates drowns et cetera and so is our system of justice imperfect because sloane believes himself innocent and maintains that the gambler from nanih waiya committed all the crimes with which sloane is accused but freyr has prepared to ship sloane off no matter what and that involves time travel yes time travel which will be accomplished by injecting a liquified sloane into TV LAND which is the epoch freyr has chosen for sloane to time travel chronaut victor on the other hand will be the control for this experiment and will remain on the couch watching TV LAND for the most part unless he has to have a potty break sloane's only objection is that minnie driver doesn't appear on TV LAND and he wishes that freyr had chosen a different epoch like BRAVO for example and again he likes to make the point that our capitalist system will in no way benefit from this experiment and that he will do everything in his power while in TV LAND to promote a new system called the gift economy while freyr is in basic agreement with this plan as he is the god of plenty freyr does expect that sloane will still need to be delivered to the experiment platform by armed soldiers no one loves sloane but no one trusts him either
after hearing about a friend's death victor has a terrible compulsion to eat as much as possible and drink all the liquor in his flat first he has two brownies and a piece of banana bread then he has a cuban sandwich then three brownies and another piece of banana bread he finishes all his bushmills whisky then has a bowl of bush's boston beans with two knockwurst and a shot of bourbon his dead friend weighed 330 when he died of a heart attack and victor feels he must maybe match his friend's weight to prove the obesity itself couldn't have been the cause of his death the ghost floats above victor in his flat and says only 140 more pounds to go keep eating so victor leaves his flat afraid of the ghost and motors for the fens where a figure of a man a shadow against the boston skyline a nightmare standing against the background lit by a street lamp poised as if to chase victor and victor believed his dead friend when he told victor about astral walks near cassadega could be true so victor sneaks into trinity and drinks the communion wine from the sacristy and feels better except that another car has parked in his space when he drives back to his flat so he lets the air out of the interloper's tires and breaks its windshield with his lawn chair now victor's face shines and there are holes coming in and out of himself and his feet seem not portable and data begins spilling out of him as sparks just light flashing and he realizes it's traffic lights changing to yellow red splashes at midnight and he drives off looking for a parking spot taking his lawn chair with him around the blocks to newbury street then closer to mfa and still no space so he pulls into trinity's lot and parks and pukes
freyr asks why do people who make horror movies think god and the devil speak latin freyr asks will my health insurance cover me overseas freyr asks am i correct in my perceptions but incorrect in my judgements sloane asks why is my file called a rapsheet or jacket why am i called a jumper or a skip if i violate parole why is a cop also called a dick or the heat victor says our god is an advertisement for our self sloane says we are an advertisement built on psychographic data that doesn’t describe the product so much as it describes the personality and the character of the prospective consumer victor says we are an ad campaign that almost ignores the product so that it can flatter you for having the good taste to want us
victor sees rich deposits of magnesium and silicon in a pair of colliding galaxies known as the antennae sloane says deposits are located in vast clouds of hot gas and when the clouds cool a great number of stars and planets should form victor says these results may foreshadow the fate of our own milky way and its future collision with the andromeda galaxy sloane says indices cuckoo dwarves irresolute pfennig pharaoh accusatory become extraordinary helpful rhodium lusaka aborning parrot decatur dissonant ammonia adobe codfish compost flown slur howell like victor says new smart watches can download and display tiny bits of text information from the web sloane says ditto victor says with a digital player a user can now download an audiobook for less than it would cost to buy a book or audiocassette sloane says happy birthday elvis
as gods go freyr wasn't a complete nutball he always maintained a steady address in pottstown and a vacation home in coral gables but for meetings that crossed many universes he chose universitat d zoom zoom because of its huge cannabis laboratory many plants grew to fifteen feet and higher some buds were as large as his fist and the lab techs always allowed him to test lethality on the premises before taking any home to his faculty apartment since of course freyr taught at the universitat as well as smoked there usually his students were from denmark and finland with a few swedes and norwegians thrown in for good measure however several students hailed from east l.a. and he loved to have them attend class with their ipods bellowing midniters and malo international relations and consumables was his meat and potatoes course and gift economies a rare special topics course both sloane and victor had been students when freyr first taught at universitat d zoom zoom neither liked the god much at the time because as gods go freyr was more condescending than others such as loki who never failed to flatter his students and had a funny way of pronouncing ragnorak anorak fart attack
the selection committee that identified victor and sloane as possible chronauts concerned itself mainly with their states of mind since ordinary time is really an illusion the committee sought players who had real difficulty with the concept of past and future already both victor and sloane had smoked pot since they were old enough to strike a match and therefore had no sense of ordinary time at all for example the last trip to the grocery store would always seem like the first to sloane and victor never bothered to shop because his taste for sushi was so acute he needed it three times a day religious authorities had already condemned the time experiment so the fact that the two chronauts dabbled in gluttony and drug abuse only added to the priests' dismay what's more theologians at their universitat had put a fatwa on the laboratory that was running the time experiment the building was surrounded by placard wielding protesters night and day polizei with digital cameras photographed the crowd and surveillance cameras photographed the polizei photographing the crowd which for the most part was nonviolent except for the one time paint remover hit the principal investigator's land rover and he cried big tears boo hoo
in order to stop victor and sloane's upcoming journey because of popular fears about their universe's resulting implosion federal courts outlawed time experiments in all jurisdictions while some underground fundamentalist organizations plotted attacks at all universitats to forestall impending time travel by victor and sloane and others like them none of the universitats' leaders had actually given permission for experiments but neither had any forbade them freyr of course rose above the universitat administrative bodies due to his god status still federal marshalls stationed themselves at science buildings and laboratories anticipating an armed struggle sloane left the following message for all his lovers vitrify informatica lomb thick sainthood similitude nepal emancipate inharmonious blanchard eulerian angel podium altitude cactus screechy sanctuary delouse chimeric cover and equally dismayed by the upcoming fight with federal authorities victor emailed this to his ex-wife alcmena estuary capricious coca starlight chelate cohere isomorph aristotle crosscut condiment solon heady slide cockcrow simple tuesday anticipatory polarography kirk turpitude hence footstep iniquity synapse bundy
excellently prepared for their departure by a squadron of virgins sloane and victor then made tiny space costumes for themselves to hide what might to other creatures seem preposterous although freyr had once told them their anatomies honored the all father's penchant for bird buddies huginn and muninn
sloane shoved victor into the tube and injected him into the epoch without screaming without remonstrance having set their wristwatches to tick off seconds as though each were in different rooms in different universes as the epoch was another universe unmapped by scholars at universitat d zoom zoom and freyr watched watches spin on both who had dressed in serapes before undertaking their experiment and note please that their watches rang loudly gong gong at the initiation and climax of events so that any passing would hear and help if necessary knowing that not only victor but also sloane would be dipped in terror by who knows what sights could be seen at either end of the epoch already there were those who predicted that freyr would take his horn of plenty to another galaxy in their universe if this experiment failed he would saddle up and cowboy off to m1123 as that was the nearest and dearest to his heart next to the horsehead nebula where sloane and victor mostly lived as wooden men who were concerned mainly with their manliness and tied knots as frequently as possible with many wives at either end of the epoch
freyr to say the least was pretty sore at sloane for switching places with victor so freyr held sloane in a headlock while they watched TV LAND for a few hours victor made a few appearances in commercials for ivory snow and shake and bake then he crashed a party for aunt bee and was shot four times in the chest by gomer pyle at which point freyr shoved sloane into the tube and injected him into the epoch without screaming without remonstrance having set sloane's wristwatch to tick off seconds as though each were in different rooms in different universes as the epoch was another universe unmapped by scholars at universitat d zoom zoom and freyr watched watches spin on extremely short time intervals and distance scales where as brian greene at columbia notes quantum fluctuations so mangle space and time that the conventional ideas of left/right backward/forward up/down before/after become meaningless so sloane made a left/right into BRAVO and gave minnie driver a big up/down
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