Horror story in past perfect continuous
Page 1 of 2
It was the strangest thing anybody at the party had ever seen. A crowd had
gathered around the two gentlemen. A few of them had seen it happen and were
rapidly filling in the others on the strange phenomenon.
The two gentlemen were both scientists. One of them was a nuclear scientist
and the other, a quantum physicist. They had been both involved in an animated
debate a few minutes ago, before it happened.
At first it had been amusing. But now anyone who slightly laughed was
angrily glanced at by the rest of the subdued crowd as they stared in
Just before it happened, the quantum physicist was telling a group of
interested people about the "irrationality of particle dynamics" as he put it.
"Frankly", he had said, "the more coincidental an event seems to be, the more
stable it appears to be too". The nuclear scientist had nodded in affirmation.
The physicist had continued the discussion, drawing people's attention to how
improbable their very existence was, and yet, there seemed no immediate threat
to it either.
"It is like a huge rock balanced on its tip", he had said. "The more
unlikely its present form seems, the more stable it actually is".
"Popping randomly out of nothing, seems to impair the tendency to pop back
into nothing", the nuclear scientist had said. A few people had laughed, but
the majority appeared had confused.
The nuclear scientist had carried on. "We dont really know why, our wild
speculation is that the circular nature of mathematics makes a highly
improbable event actually quite probable". It was a lighthearted jest, but the
audience had just nodded wisely, Nuclear scientists' jokes bomb too.
"You see", the physicist had carried on, "we know for sure that everything
that happens, does so in the face of massive improbability. There is no earthly
reason why the human race has survived this long and yet we chose to logically
take that as a valid reason for continued survival. And we are right in a
The audience had considerably increased and some had even glanced around to
draw others to this conversation.
The two speakers had been keen to prove a point. They had been friends for
many years, and the temporal nature of coincidental events fascinated them.
Some would call it an obsession.
"Are you saying", a man had interjected, "that if I somehow balance a long
stick on its end, it would remain like that unless I hit it out of its 'stable'
"Yes", they had both answered calmly, in unison. The physicist had then
said, "Absolutely. But the stick must be very, very long for it to be
sufficiently improbable - to be sufficiently stable!"
"How long?", the man had continued, delighted at having asked, what he
judged to be a clever question.
"Perhaps a few thousand miles long, the mathematics is secondary" the
nuclear scientist had replied. Any trapeze artists around?" he had drawled and
had been immediately rewarded with loud laughter.
"Not just that", he had continued when the laughter had died down, "but the
highly improbable event of balancing the thousand mile long stick would very
likely be so stable that you would not even be able to unbalance it once,
indeed, you had balanced it"
"This is rubbish", a man had said, "If that were so, any person winning a
large lottery would continue winning others".
"Those are separate events you are comparing. But think about it this
Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 Nikhil, sffworld.com. All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author. The author has submitted the work in accordance with and in agreement with the following Submission Guidelines.