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 Mass in Motion
by Steve
He led us on for the longest time. We knew only that he'd disappeared, that he'd been locked up for a short time in a mental hospital. He wouldn't describe it until he had some semblance of the story straight in his mind. Ewan and I were understandably curious; it was doubtless going to be a fantastic story indeed.
One day, about a year after the happening, he came back to town on a visit, and called Ewan and me out to The Prince to have a few pints and hear his tale. We dropped what we were doing and headed over. We got one of the tables along the long bench, on which I sat; they sat on chairs facing me.
He began his story by reminding us that he'd been living alone in a small house in the foothills of the Smokies. He'd been out there some time and had been slipping away a bit since his accident a few years prior. This was the story of the night he finally crossed over; the night he actually went crazy.
He was a pretty bright fellow, actually. Had a full scholarship to a good college. Did pretty well, had a special eye for math. He got such a kick out of solving puzzles, he began to want to unlock the ultimate puzzles of the universe: the bonds of reality, of this wavelength we inhabit. He wanted to see beyond.
He'd pursued a number of means in his quest. Meditation, incantation, and self-medication all got a turn. And this evening, he had an idea which, to him, summed it up. He happened to be in the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror, when he said
"One. Two. Three. Four. Air. Earth. Fire. Time."
("What does that mean?" I asked. "That's a whole other conversation, man," was his reply.)
At this instant, everything went black and silent. Stricken with a panic that he had somehow caused the removal from existence of the entire universe, he yelled out "But wait! I'm still here!" and the power immediately came back on.1
I don't recall exactly the sequence of logic that followed, but he came to the conclusion that he was in fact dead; that he was no longer a living, breathing human like the rest of us, whatever he was. A flood of thoughts came from this, including regrets for experiences he'd not yet had on earth. Like taking the three hits of acid he had in the freezer. With this memory, he went over, retrieved them, and ate them down. In passing, he found it odd that a dead man would need water.
As one can imagine, his next few hours were pretty weird, as he explored the world of the undead with a solid dose of acid playing with his head. And well before the effects had begun to wear off, it was 5:20am, and he needed to get to his 6AM shift at the factory. So he hopped in the car and headed for work.
When he pulled into the factory parking lot, he looked into the windows and saw some of his coworkers. Only they weren't humans; they were lizards, in human suits, working at desks and drinking coffee. At this point he failed the most important rule of narcotic use: he did not remind himself that he was on drugs. He now believed that he, through his universe-tampering experiments, had changed all his coworkers into lizards. 2 Clearly, he could not go to work today, as those lizards love the taste of dead people.
He decided to explore his newfound powers. He was a bit of a speed demon, you see, so he decided to get out on the Interstate and make his little car go two hundred miles an hour!
As he approached his vehicular terminal velocity (~120mph), he willed the car as hard as he could: "Become a Porsche 917. Become a Porsche 917." Yet the car stubbornly refused to morph into a 917. He came to the conclusion that this was because his car did not contain as much mass as a 917 so he decided to collect some mass from the cars around him.
He rear-ended an SUV near him, which did not cause a severe wreck, but left one very confused guy concerned about the state of his car. Not enough mass.
He again roared his beast up to terminal velocity, and set his sights on the cargo 18-wheeler up ahead. At a divergence of perhaps 60mph, he slammed his car into the rear of the truck. Needless to say, at this point, the vehicle's terminal velocity became zero. And much to his dismay, it lost a lot of mass.
Concerned for his 917 project, he immediately got out of the car and began picking up the parts and putting them in the car. It wasn't too long before the police realized he was totally not in control of his faculties, and sent him to the home for ten days.
Ewan and I shared a look. Neither of us had ever heard anything like it. After what seemed like an eternity, I said the only thing I could think of.
"You know a 917 weighs like 1700 lbs, right?"
1) A check of records in the defense of his case showed that his house experienced a 5-second power outage around midnight as they replaced a component.
2) The possibilities!
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