A Secret Weapon

The Endtime Adjuster is really getting on my nerves! I've been to the future, and while it may not be to everyone's liking, I can tell you that the world definitely does not end any time soon. Jesus does not return to judge the living and the dead (though He does show up, quite unexpectedly, to watch the Great Solar Derbys of 2702), nor does Vishnu retract the entire universe back into the cosmic extension cord sprouting from his navel....at least not within the next fifteen hundred years or so.

For all the skeptics out there I have brought back a trophy from my visit to the future. I know, I know--you're not supposed to do that; you can mess up the whole temporal fabric of reality yadda yadda. We've seen the Star Trek and Dr. Who re-runs and we know all about the perils and paradoxes of time travel. But I just couldn't resist sneaking this one little item.

When a problem has been rankling your brain for the better part of twenty years, and all of a sudden the solution is right there in front of you, and the only thing preventing you from settling the matter is the ghost of a scruple in your conscience saying that your actions could change the entire past/future timestream of humanity in an unpredictable and possibly disastrous manner, what's one to do? I couldn't resist. And I think you're going to be glad that I didn't.


The coffee staining this cover doesn't
even exist for another 1 562 years!

That's right folks--fifteen hundred years hence, the solution book to that persistent little flash-fad of the eighties, the Rubic's Cube, is not only widely available, it's mandatory reading for each and every citizen of the United Gyrobian Earth Colonies (how the entire population of Earth comes to share the name of Gyrobo the robot is another story, for another time). In fact, the nice old couple from whom I filched this well-thumbed copy will likely be arrested and sent to the Video Mines of Central Ohio for having lost their manual, but it's all for a good cause.

You have no idea how much more free time humans have in the future, once the solution to the Cube is finally discovered and mapped out in book form. Just imagine: no more late, fruitless nights with that infernal cube; and no more calling in sick because you think you might finally have the solution, only to be thwarted by an inverted orange/green middle piece. It's a veritable paradise on Earth!

What's more--and this is where we come to my plot to banish the Adjuster to the Negative/Neutral Zone--it turns out that the Cube, when manipulated in certain permutations, actually acts to unlock the hidden creative energies of the Dark Matter--that mysterious stuff with which the universe is thought to be largely composed.

In short, people in the year 3567 don't work; they simply manipulate their Rubic's Cubes to manifest whatever it is they need or desire in the way of material items. Need a new four-dimensional holovision to watch the World Skateboarding Championships? No problem: just consult the Manual, perform the necessary twists of the Cube and voila! the technology is yours, no money down and don't pay a cent--ever!

Now, I've been reading between the lines, if you know what I mean. It's not explicitly stated, but obvious to a keen student of the Manual, that the Cube can be used not only to transform dark matter into the trappings of this world, it can also be used in reverse so as to translate portions of reality back into dark matter. I think that practicing these procedures is know in the future as the Dark Side of the Cube. The people who learn these arts are few, and largely shunned and feared by their fellow citizens.

However, given the threat that the Endtime Adjuster poses to the sanity of the nations (and the return reader rating of this blog) I'm willing to risk possible Dark Side Contamination in an attempt to banish the Adjuster forever to the negative/neutral zone, there to spin apocalyptic diatribes to his toy heart's content without disturbing the sanity of well-meaning Fakiegrind readers.


That little red doll doesn't stand a chance.