Report from the Underground (or I Devise an Arcane and Serpentine Revenge For an Imagined Slight)

To move our narrative along, however, under one thread extolling the merits and deficiencies of organized religion, I placed the wittiest of bon-mots. In reply to a particular ironic query rhetorically asking what lessons the bible really teaches, specifically, what is gleaned from David delivering 200 slain Philistine foreskins unto Saul in exchange for a bride, I responded, “The leskin is, ya shouldn’t be foreskin womens ta marry ya.” I then added the coup de grace, the signature of that loveable, squint-eyed jack-tar, Popeye.

The scene was set; all I had to do now was sit back and wait for the accolades to roll in. I perceived hundreds of benedictions and an electronic vin d’honneur, the bowed heads of supplicanting affections and acanthus leaf wreaths placed like a crown upon my temple. And yet...puzzlingly…nothing. “Aha, they are just letting the true humour sink in, savouring it like a fine wine, perhaps an ‘89 Chateauneu from Pegau; I must have patience.” But one hour turned to two and the infernal timepiece kept ticking away, louder and louder like some nightmare out of Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart.” Two days later, I sat with nary a medal or certificate to my achievement, not even one mention of my jest was made. Not one! Who could foretell that my sagacity would be the false whisper of that quisling pride?

The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized how great an affront this truly was. To not recognize my wordplay as le mot juste was not just an insult to me, but also to the gods above, to their earthly avatars as beings of pure whimsy and drollery. So, etching a mask of dissimulation upon my face to throw my enemies off the trail, I retreated to my water chamber to soak and plan my clever revenge.

After hours of planning, I finally unveiled my plans at the mud slide amusement during the local festival Cervantes Days. To an assembled crowd of hundreds, I brought out my blueprints and charts, formulas and metal-stamped aluminum intaglios, power-point displays and photoencepholographic recordings, which was the sound reproduction of photons passing through my neurons as I devised my plan (not necessary for the presentation, but extremely important as a document of my eventual triumph.).

Before the throngs of festival-goers, I laid my devices bare, “Since I was a boy, I have been enthralled by the math of discretion, and now to aid me in my vengeance, which I’m sure you’ve heard all about, I have used it to devise a certain translation device. Using the Fibonacci Sequence, that is, a sequence which is unfurled by adding the two previous numbers to get the next (1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34…) I have created a unique way of translating English to German and vice versa.”

“Let’s say we were trying to translate ‘Verweile doch, du bist so schon’ into English. Each part of the phrase would be run through the sequence to as many places as there are letters in the entire phrase. As it is run through the sequence, using this computer program, a number is assigned to the letter, depending on its shape and relevance to the English alphabet. Rounder letters are naturally drawn to higher, even numbers, while straight hard letters are drawn to lower, odd numbers. Letters like ‘d’ and ‘b’ are in the middle, although if capitalized, they will naturally gravitate towards the latter end of the numerical spectrum. After this process is finished, one must only rearrange the numbers according to the function of the Fibonacci Sequence, f(x)=dt(3x³ – 5x), and the phrase in English results. Oh, and if you were wondering…’Stay a while, you are so nice’.” I was greeted with thunderous applause, the likes which have not been seen on this continent for sixty years. And so, with the public’s approval, I enacted my vendetta. Using the ‘private message’ function on the board, in which I may send secret messages to each person without the other’s prying eyes invading my sweet words of prosopopoeia, I used my new technique to generate German sentences, translated phrases taken from this month’s Journal of Minerology and Gemery, and then sent, at most, two sentences to each of those philistines. Once my havoc is wrecked, then let us see if they ever ignore my Wildean wit again. Victory!