From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 10 - January 1993


Short Story
by Antonius Philipius, Rom

(Antionius is a runner between Rom and Londinium, carrying messages
between his Imperial Majesty and his subjects. While running he
invents articles and stories, most of which do not get written down
because of shortage of time, stone and chisels to write them with.)

BANG!!!

"Oh, He's done it again", I said to myself.

My five year old son was continually driving his little tricycle
against the concrete wall in the garden at 30 miles an hour.

I looked out. Yes, he had done it again. His head lay in one corner,
one arm in another and the rest of his body lay by the side of the
tricycle, which as usual, was still in one piece (no shoddy Japanise
article, this tricycle; I had paid a fortune for it).

I speculated over the enthusiasm and hot headedness fo the young. And
he was doomed to remain five years old until I had finished my
experiments!

I picked the head, arm and body up, took them into my workshop and
patiently starting putting them together, like I had done so many
times before. I left the head til last. I knew well what would happen
when I had got all the wires connected correctly together.

And sure enough it did. A stream of vitriolic abuse. Including a angry
complaints over my inability to give him a "strong body", as he put
it.

Again I resolved to try and find some way of making him feel just a
little pain when he damaged his body. I was beginning to feel that was
the only way to instil care in him. And perhaps just a little
unconsciousness, when there was an impact over a certain threshold.

When I had checked all the joints and wiring, and the stream of abuse
had lessened a little, I patiently, and a little wearily, took him up
and placed him on my knee. There was a quite vicious spark as I did
so. The crash had obviously created more static electricity than I had
bargained for. I must remember to earth him first next time.

Next time? How much longer must this go on?

He was still muttering a bit, so I disconnected his mouth, and began
to say to him (as soothingly as I could):

"Axiom One. Life is basically created by Antony.

"Axiom Two. Antony is capable of considerations, post ... "

Editorial Note: At last we have managed to get one of our authors to
write the sort of article we really want for page 3, the most
important page in the magazine. An article which looks as though it is
meant to be funny, and might even make a few readers laugh, when they
finally realize that that was what they were supposed to do. But an
article which also contained a hidden uplifting message, so that the
reader was likely to say at the end of it, "I feel as though I have
had an important cognition, I can't quite think what it was, but I
think I ought to write a success story about it. I wonder what
happened. Perhaps the church channelllllled a cognition to me while I
was so confused about that article." Or something like that.

The article should also preferably test readers ability to spot
outpoints. We are keen to covertly prepare our readers for the new
age.

So I hope our authors and budding authors are suitably encouraged to
try. There is, by the way, no need for authors to put in spelling
mistakes to test readers' ability to spot those. The editorial staff
has no difficulty in doing that. Ed.