Allister Cromley's Fairweather Belle (Bedtime Stories For Grownups To Tell)
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Manual Translations

1/26/2009

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Allister reached a point of paranoia one winter. He was listening to a favorite radio program from the talents of two former vaudevillians whose veteran experience was most evident in their pinpointedly quick wits and it suddenly dawned on him that, in the future, this banter may be lost forever. Though technology had advanced to a point where oral documentation was possible, if electricity became passe, a long forgotten form of energy, then so too, would our history. Lost in the dust of silent recordings on records whose directions were buried with time. Statesmen, scholars, heroes, and entertainers lost in the forgetful dust of evolution. This, of course, was a long ways off. But, people had to prepare for these things. Had the Rosetta Stone not been chiseled generations before the disappearance of hieroglyphics usage, we would never have unlocked the secrets of that language.

So, in the spirit of Mr. or Mrs. Rosetta (or whomever chiseled), Allister began his chiseling. He wrote first in English and then collected translations in as many languages as he could. He even resorted to the creation of anticipated new languages in attempts to stay ahead of the future. These he created by thinking of an object and then blindly pointing at letters written on a chalkboard, creating bizarre new words like fitzxcv and brposj. It should also be noted that a series of spins were added before the blind point in an attempt to simulate the Earth's natural orbit and also to add the element of absurdly extreme randomness (Allister called this the AER factor). All in all, he had over three thousand languages. The languages were all written on Allister's own version of the Rosetta Stone, a modernized version to be sure, that Allister called the Rosetta Legal Pad. The Rosetta Legal Pad broke all the languages down into each other. With this, he then, wrote translations in the directions of radio use.

Eventually (And by eventually what is meant is after a hearty meal), Allister thought it most necessary to write down how to create electricity since the idea of the loss of such was what spawned the initial idea that became The Rosetta Legal Pad. He could think of no better way to begin the electricity directions than to start from the beginning. Hence, he wrote in over three thousand languages that, "to begin to make electricity one must accidentally fly a kite with a key attached in a storm with particularly hostile bolts of lightning." The word 'accidentally' was added because Allister, himself had tried, most strategically, on numerous occasions to recreate this event to no avail. Therefore, he surmised it was the element of surprise that he lacked. 

Beginning with the kite and key, Allister retraced the entire history of electricity in over three thousand languages, amassing numerous volumes of over eighteen thousand pages. One could hardly imagine anyone reading these unless it was absolutely necessary. But, Allister knew it was important, knew our history depended on someone knowing how to replay recordings, and knew that depended on someone knowing of the electrical process. All can be forgotten. This was just a fact. But, Allister would be damned if that happened to our stories. 

He sealed his Rosetta Legal Pad in layers and layers of steel, three inches thick. But, not before making three additional copies and sealing them in layers and layers of additional steel, three inches thick. These four steel encased copies were laid to rest in four separate places- in a mountain, deep beneath the sea, in a desert, and one resting just beneath a tree in the middle of a jungle. The thought being that no one knew how the world would evolve, if mountain would become sea or vice versa, and Allister wanted to make certain that someone in the deep future would find a capsule and recreate the history of electricity in order to make phonographs and play old records. The old records, of course, would have to be passed down from generation to generation as records would not fit in the steel capsules.
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