Once upon Ye Olde English heath, as the door to her cottage swung open, Hildegard smelled burning. Her husband’s boot had crossed the threshold, he would expect dinner, and he would not want it to be burned.

Hildegard rushed to the hearth. She grabbed the dangling pot of stew and instantly, agonizingly, the metal seared her palms.

“Zounds!” she cried.

“Woman!” her husband remonstrated.

“Zounds, it hurts!”

“Hold thy foul tongue!” her husband roared. “Thou wilt not blaspheme in my house!” (For zounds, dear reader, derived from God’s wounds, a reference to the crucifixion of Christ, and to employ the torture of one’s Lord and Savior as an epithet was as shocking to a pious old Englishman as the lyrics of NWA would prove to his descendants' erstwhile colonists 400 years after.)

“But it hurts!” Hildegard cried. “Thy stew burneth, and the metal hath proved too hot for my tender hands!”

“Stow thy pitiful excuses!” her husband retorted. “Find thyself a godlier path, or never again look me in the face!”

Hildegard departed. She wept even after she treated her second degree burns at the home of a crone who practiced homeopathic medicine, for Hildegard loved her husband, for some reason, or at least loved having a roof over her head to escape the goddamned English rain. To keep her husband roof husband, she needed aid, so Hildegard set out to a person who could set her on a godly path.

“Woman, why dost thou weep?” the Archbishop of Canterbury asked.

“Forgive me bishop,” Hildegard answered. “I hath displeased my husband.”

“How?”

“With an ill word.”

“What ill word did thee speakest?”

Hildegard hesitated. “I said, Zounds, your bishopness.”

“Jesus,” said the Archbishop of Canterbury, “that’s fucking awful word. Why wouldst thou say such a thing?”

“I burned my hands, your bishopness. On a pot. Heaven help me, if I don’t find a safer way to hold a pot, I might blaspheme again, and my husband will disown me. Is there any hope for such a disgraced wench as me?”

“Let us pray.”

And Hildegard and the Archbishop knelt and prayed, and, i dunno, burned frankincense or something, and lo, the Holy Ghost sent them down a dove, which carried in its beak a thickly woven fabric, and they gave thanks to the Lord.

“Almighty God,” asked the Archbishop of Canterbury, “what wouldst You, in Your Infinite Wisdom, have us call this thickly woven fabric with which to hold pots?”

The candles flared, the stones of the cathedral shook, the Archbishop wet himself, and a voice from the heavens boomed, “A potholder.”

And so Hildegard carried the potholder home, and gave knowledge of it unto other women, and prepared many delicious stews without burning her hands, which meant she never again said the unforgiveable zounds, which meant her husband loved her, five times a week whether she were in the mood or not, and she bore many children and had a roof over her head to protect her from the goddamned English rain, and they all lived happilyish ever after until the plague destroyed their bodies and minds.

The End.

When I was a young boy, about four years old, I was quite the precocious little bugger and a budding ladies man to boot. My mom had a couple of friends with daughters my age. Occasionally one of them would come over with their daughter, and I had a playmate for the afternoon. It's funny, but the only game I remember playing was I'll show you my tail if you show me yours. Lack of vocabulary was the reason I called my thing a tail. Lack of experience was the reason I thought girls had some kind of tail too. But I learned fast. The strange thing was, even after learning, it was still fun to play. One time, one of the girls showed me how she could stand and pee like a boy from her non-tail. Boy was I impressed! In any event, somehow, all of our moms found out about our secret game. After that, whenever I played with one of the girls, my older brother was tasked with keeping an eye on us and letting our moms know if we played the tail game. That's why they now call what my brother did tailing. It's also the start of the modern surveillance state.

On my last day in Geneva I’m visiting the Mecca of Science, CERN. I book the ride via Uber app, from the hotel, and make a quick video call to my family. On the move, I doom scroll the news feed, catch up on email, and then back to doom scrolling.

After admission to the visitor’s centre, I plunge into the exhibits of the Large Hadron Collider, the Antimatter, and the Higgs boson for a couple of enlightened hours.

Then, a small black computer catches my eye. A keyboard leans against it and a mouse hangs at the front. A note, partially obscured at the edges as if someone had tried ripping it off but didn’t succeed, reads: ‘This machine is a server. DO NOT POWER DOWN!!’ Next to it, is a project proposal with a note scrawled in its top margin: ‘Vague but exciting …’

On a reflex, I reach out and touch the glass enclosure expecting an alarm to go off. What happens, instead, like a strong eddy, the room swirls, causing me to grab the exhibit’s pedestal.

Unknown many moments later, the churning stops. There are voices in the room, which itself has turned antiquated. I steady myself and look around to notice two men in conversation, unaware of my presence even as I approach and greet them. Spread on a circular table between them, among coffee cups, is the same document from the exhibit while the computer is on a desk behind one of them who has his back towards me. He is speaking with a British accent. The computer, a perfect cube, is brand new and I recognize it as NeXT, one of Jobs’ creations after he was fired from Apple.

“All I need, Mike” the Brit says, “are four software engineers and a programmer-”

“And fifty thousand dollars!” interrupts the other.

“Well, yes … but this will change everything. You wouldn’t have to ask where the documents for a project are, or chase who wrote this piece of code-”

“So, you do see why I scribbled ‘vague but exciting’ on your proposal, don’t you?”

“I’m glad you found it exciting” the British one jokes, “as for the vague part, let’s imagine every piece of information around the world, linked to each other like a mesh”

He locks his fingers in demonstration. His opponent crosses his arms instead:

“Understood! I hope that shiny new computer will suffice” Mike points to NeXT.

“That will do, thanks!”

“Excellent. Send a requisition for the team you need for my approval. By the way, I hear you’re calling it ‘Enquire Within Upon Everything’? Isn’t that a book?”

The Englishman laughs. “Yes, the title evokes magic. For me, as a child, the book was a portal to a world of information-”

“Not catchy enough!” declares Mike.

“How about WorldWideWeb then?”

“Cheerio mate!”

Gobsmacked, I notice the calendar on the wall. It’s November 12th, 1990 and there’s no mistaking the creation of the internet by its father, Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee.

On a dark night long ago, we're talking first century or earlier, a sad, unnamed horse was trying to find his family when he encountered a flock of animals. The horse asked the shadowy shapes, "Are you my family?" When the sun rose, the horse saw that he was standing amid a flock of wooly animals known as baa-baas.

The horse turned red and said, "I feel sheepish." And he went to a horse tavern to drown his sorrows.

This is a threefold origin story:

1) How the sheep got its name,

2) The joke, "Horse walks into a bar and the bartender says, "Why the long face?"

3) America's 1972 hit, "A Horse With No Name."

On Feb. 1rst our young friend Rubric received his ration of sugar for the month. He regretted momentarily that it was not a leap year. Then he dropped one piece into weak tea they were also portioning out amid the family.

Ida spied his sugar, along with their brother, just a year younger than her, Kuba who everyone called Kubby, in short because he was short, stout, and in a word chunky.

This would not do.

The sweet would soon be the source of bitter irritation and argument. The eldest could already hear the surfacing of high pitched, infantile whimpering: I wannnnt somme...

That very night, removing the sugar cubes from the cool dark hiding spot with utmost stealth and precaution, he worked alone in a dim lit corner. With a sharp tannery needle and slender thread, he strung his sugar together, one at a time, 3 x 3. Three times, and he made the sign of the cross each time, for fear of breakage, or of his siblings waking, but mercifully the sugar did not crumble, and everyone slept.

Soon he had three squares of nine. These he ingeniously strung to each other, so that every row rotated left/right and forward/back. The children had, most fortuitously, some salvaged colored papers in a box under the bed. This he swiftly extracted, and soundlessly cut into small squares sized to cover each exposed side of the sugar plane.

He moistened the thin paper with lukewarm water and adhered it by the stickiness of the slightly melted sugar. Red on one side, green on another, then blue, yellow and white would have to suffice for the remaining side.

He set it to dry behind him on the floor and dozed.

In the early hours, with everyone else still turned with their back to him in bed, he was delighted to see that the little papers had stuck, and everything still twisted as intended on the little nylon thread he had strung through with the long piercing needle and knotted off.

The twist of the cubes made a little shuffling noise in the dim light as the sugar crystals scrapped slightly against each other. Ida's eyelashes flittered and a sleepy arm reached out from the mattress, almost touching his sleeve: "Whaaattt is itt?"

"Our new toy," he said and gave the 3 x 3 panels a good twisting left/right, back/ forward, till all the colors were very well mixed up and very visible now in the dawn that was creeping in through the window over their bed, with Kubby still asleep in a clump to her far side. In truth, he wasn't old enough to play. He could, by himself only sleep, eat, and waddle about, and do what two-year old's do terribly best: get into everything.

Ida sat up and took the toy, a flushed look of amazement and joy across her face. She could not remember when they had a new plaything, having been hunkered down here for reasons she could not understand. She did not know what a bomb threat was, except that it was Bad.

They could hear their parents getting readied in the small room adjacent. Mother leaned a head in and gave a wayward smile, thin and hopeful, and went to set out some rations for breakfast. Then Father stood in the door, in his work clothes, and immediately picked up on the novel object. He put out a coarse hand and Ida placed the toy in it without hesitation.

"Well done, son," he said gruffly, and behind the flash in his eyes a calculation. Father knew the value of an idea. "I'll hold on to this."

A mixture of pride and dismay filled the twelve-year-old. He did well, but he'd lost his treasure. And now, as Father walked out with it, Ida wailed inconsolably in tantrum, toddler as she was, even if soon going on four.

It was Kubby who quickly found it.

And Father who found him: sucking on the cube, the colored papers stuck to his cheek and teeth. His fingers a sticky sweet guiltless mess.

Somebody got a whooping.

Father spent the next nights with Rubric reconstructing the toy from wood and paint.

The family made a fortune after the war, and Rubric somewhat made a name for himself, with a little help from Kuba.

06.29.2024

Mysterious History challenge @AJAY9979

Anubis watched as his father, Osiris, watered the fields with a simple wave of his finger. Seated on his golden throne, cushioned by a blue linen pillow, he glanced across where Isis scribbled her magical enchantments on papyrus. Nature sprouted through the window in front of her overlooking the fields of Aaru, while Seth patrolled the sandy terrain with his staff.

“Dear, shouldn’t you find a hobby too?” Isis inquired, noticing his gaze.

“I don’t want a hobby, I want a profession like all of you,” Anubis replied.

“Well, son, one must remember to be responsible and consistent in their work. Once you’ve chosen a job, you can’t back out, and you’ll have to wake up early. You know your brother Horus’s watchful gaze won’t forgive you if you break your word,” said Isis.

“I know, I know, but I want to feel useful. I’ll come up with something, you’ll see,” Anubis said, glancing at the screen displaying humans on Earth, particularly Pharaoh Horus Scorpion savoring baklava, honey slowly flowing from his lips, eager to explore the outside world.

“I’ve had an idea! What if we pretend they cease to exist? Just to make the experience more exciting. They can return as if they’ve been revived, after a purifying process, with new identities and all that stuff, of course,” Anubis suggested.

“But Anubis, death doesn’t exist. Souls are eternal,” said Osiris.

“I know, but let’s simulate it. I could manage that process, you know? Oh, and we could even make up a story about ourselves to add more drama—say, my uncle Seth kills my father for the throne, and we revive him. Something like that,” Anubis continued.

It was a sunny morning in the Field of Reeds, and river lilies crackled with light when Horus approached Anubis, whose jackal ears twitched as he slept.

“You slacker, what’s happening with your job?!” Horus said, not even trying to whisper.

“W-What are you talking about? Nothing’s wrong, everything’s up to date,” Anubis said, rubbing his large, slanted eyes.

“Up to date?! What do you have to say about this almost thousand-year-old Methuselah, eh?” Horus inquired.

“Oops,” Anubis swallowed nervously, realizing that the business of death was more convoluted than he initially thought.

I take my historical accounts seriously. But that doesn't mean the mysterious--but true--one I tell here isn't funny. Is it the funniest? Hmm...

...maybe to half the world's population!

The male gender has been enamored by the penis since anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) caused his(?) Müllerian ducts, fallopian tubes, and uterus to regress, allowing the male fetus to progress, instead of the otherwise default, female.

Thus, the default--our steady state--is female. Left alone, the fetal human would always end up female. It takes extra effort--actual meddling--to chisel a male out of it. ("If it ain't broke...?)

Yet, in the real world--for too long, and finally changing--it was a Man's world. Women were second-class citizens. So is it any wonder that, as the proud males of our species thought of their penises as "mighty swords," that they would think of the act of copulation as placing such mighty swords where they belonged--sheathed for safekeeping?

Thus, the word, "vagina," comes from the Latin, for "sheath."

But no matter how masculine that makes a man feel, he should never forget that all men start out as women. Just sayin'.

It was back in the year 1762, in all its decadent glory, that there lived a glorious man known as John Montagu. One day, dearest John encountered an incident in his life, that would change the course of History altogether.

He happened to be enjoying an adventurous game of cards with his friends, and he was a bit too lazy to get up and have dinner. Also, he was too busy enjoying his precious card game with his friends. They were busy laughing, playing and doing things the way guys are likely to at a game of cards.

Given that he did not want to leave the table to go and get something to eat, John Montagu, the 4th Earl Of Sandwich came up with a brilliant idea. Now many of us love a good Deli Sandwich, and this idea of his changed the way we dine forever.

So as things would have it, he did not actually get up from his seat. Instead, he asked someone there, to put a slice of meat between two pieces of bread. Hence, the bread-enclosed treat known as the Sandwich!

The men all got back to their vivacious game, after the Earl finished with his treat!

Crazy but true

I will tell you about a champ.

How a spoon full of mustard

Stop my leg cramp.

My ancestors told me

when I was young

That getting a cramp

Was NO FUN.

I paid her no mine and

Went out to play.

I flew back in the house

With a leg cramp that day.

My muscle was balled up,

On my leg was a knot.

My grandma gave me mustard

And it stopped on the spot

I couldn't believe my eyes

But I was living proof.

I looked at my grandma

Like a giant goof.

To this day

If I get a cramp

I grab the yellow bottle

The Mustard Champ!