Road of Peas

Why Buildings Have An Inside As Well As An Outside

Once upon a time, Buildings only had Outsides. If you stepped
Inside through a door, you didn’t go Inside at all, but walked out
the door on the other side of the Building.

For many years, the Buildings just sat around. The children
would play tag, and hide-and-seek, and throw balls so that they
would bounce through several houses, but no one else paid them
any mind.

Then one year, there came a young man who excelled in throwing
balls, and had racked up scores of houses traversed far in excess
of anyone else, He loved the Buildings, and decided more could be
done with them. That more should be done with them, since they
crowded up the landscape.

First he figured out how he could deliver fresh baked cheese
pastries to people at home by cleverly calculating trajectories
through the buildings so that no time was lost from the kitchen
to the consumers. He was able to delivered fresh baked cheese pastries
to customers piping hot. This enterprise was such a big success, that
the young man had the capital to begin moving the houses around,
for more efficient deliveries.

The Building-Fast Delivery Service Company continued to rake
in excess funds, and wanted to diversify. They wanted to use Building
Tech in new ways. Soon they hit upon the idea of transporting people
between cities. The Company moved thousands of Buildings so that front
and the back doors were aligned, and a traveller could step through
a door in Schenectady and finish the stride in San Francisco. Travel
was revolutionized, and the economy took off like a bottle rocket.

The Company became filthy rich, and the Building workers
unionized. Soon contract negotiations broke down, and management
eagerly put their hardhats on to show the hands just how it should
be done. A crew in Tulsa inadvertantly connected the El Paso line
into a loop.

In their gleefully didligent haste, a foam tile was knocked off one
of the endpoint buildings when the connection was made. It fell into
the loop, and ceased to exist as a tangible object. It was smeared
over the path of the Building loop, and existed in all places at once.

Now this existence slowly leaked memory into the void between the
doors, and the foam began to quantum tunnel into nearby but off-loop
Buildings. Soon the whole travel network was involved, a critical mass
achieved, and the axiomatic geometric underpinnings of the Unverse twitched.

The head of the Tulsa crew picked himself up off the ground and
gingerly approached the nearest Building. He leaned over, and looked
through a door, into the Building. He stepped through, and was Inside.

The Company promptly settled with the union, and changed into a
rental agency.

That is why Buildings have Insides as well as Outsides.

Falling Over in the Forest

I’ve been out to Indian Ridge a number of times, and have always gone to the northern trailhead. The trail climbs from the road, across mixed terrains, and then is mostly flat the rest of the way.

About halfway up it crosses a drainage a hundred feet wide and made up of dirt and scree at about a 40 degree slope. It’s hard for trees to get a grip, and so the resulting access to the sun is great for the underbrush. As is common on such a slope, blackberries reigned supreme, and had ruled for a very long time.

I was on my way back, and started across the clearing. The little rock and dirt trail was wet and slippery, and slowly collapsing beneath my feet. Downhill is to the right.

I carry my camera in my right hand, strapped around my neck and left shoulder. I slowly very slowly walked across the clearing, until the ground fell away from my downhill foot. I almost had my balance - I began rolling to the right very slowly. I instinctly cradled the camera, and reached out to the left to grab something.

Well, I was in the middle of an old growth blackberry patch. Everything vaguely grabbable has inch long thorns bristling, just waiting. I frantically scanned for enough space to grab, but it was already too late: when I pulled back from grabbing the thorny vine, I overbalanced completely, and performed a slow motion somersault into the bramble.

I ended up head down, back and right side down, supported a few feet from the ground by the grandfather of all blackberry bushes. My camera, nestled between my right arm and chest, was fine. I couldn’t grab anything with my left hand, even if I was willing to perform such a folly. My legs were mostly immobilized by vines. Trying to twist my body jiggled me further into the brambles.

Well, it took a while, but by judiciously making gentle kicks, I was able to turn enough that I could reach out and wincingly pull myself upright. Finally crawling to the trail, I stayed on all threes all the way to the trees.

If you go there, to the northern trailhead, be careful: the road numbers on the forest service map are different from the signs. The shape of the roads makes it clear.

Manu are called - but few can spell.

Once upon a time, people could only walk in one direction: North.
No one ever turned East or West or walked backwards or even gave a
sidelong glance. Everyone went North - that’s just the way it was.
After a while, people started clumping up at the North Pole. At
first Ivan and Marie showed up, and things weren’t so bad. Then the
Jones family, the Andersens, the McCoys and the Hatfields all showed
up, and it got to be a little crowded. Not too bad, just like the
elevator at Macy’s on the day after Thanksgiving. And since there
was something of a party atmosphere, people broke out the brandy and
lutefish and a good time was had by all.
The next day the city of Milwaukee showed up, simultaneously
with most of Helsinki and St. Petersberg. Things were getting a bit
stuffy. Over the next week, the entire population of the Northern
Hemisphere were there, elbowing and shoving like frantic shoppers
over the last worthy item.
Soon all of humanity were crowded onto the North Pole. The
incredible concentration of mass flipped the Earth on its side
and it began to twist and turn like a chihuahua rubbing off a
bee sting. All the people were scattered about in every direction,
facing any which way and tumbling eratically all the time. It was
a maelstrom.
The madly tumbling Earth upset the rest of the planets, for all
mass generates gravity waves. The Earth twisting and flopping like
a fish on the dock set off chaotic waves like a bunch of kids playing
Marco Polo. It was pretty annoying.
The Sun and the Planets all reached out simultaneously and dragged
their hands on the Earth, making it slow down, and move in a regular
fashion. Soon the Earth was sedately spinning away, plunging around
the Sun in a proper fashion. The Planets went back to their gardens,
and the Sun to its search for Iron, and everyone was content.
On Earth, meanwhile, the people had been left scattered all over
the globe, holding onto the rocks and plants while the hands of
the Planets pressed on the Earth. When things calmed down, everyone
stood up, looked every which way, and walked…
Around.
People no longer faced only North, but could turn completely
around, and move any which way.
This is how people came to be able to walk in any direction.

I took the path less travelled by. Over and over again. I went in circles.

Eventually I went back the way I came, and went around Bermuda Triangle Lake.