kaolin fire presents :: writing :: fiction

"Bob_1.0"

words

The sexual world transcends the bounds of flesh and mortality. Electricity can be felt flowing in the hearts of those in lust and love. However, humans seem to be ignorant as to the fundamental premises of this. Therefore the blatant thing to do is study the mating habits of bull feathers. Unfortunately, due to lack of funding, our group decided to instead comprehend electrical components and what their thing is.

The research originally included Stephen Hawking, Alan Turing, B.F. Skinner, and Stuart Russell. However, they could not be contacted, so I called Bob and Fred and they decided to fill in. We suspect foul play by extra-terrestrials. Fred became lost on the way to the liquor store, and so Bob and I decided to begin without her.

We rummaged around the attic and various neighbors’ garbage cans for supplies. Bob ran away from the pack of rabid dogs, but I found Fred evacuating her stomach into a trash can [a GREEN one] and dragged her back to my place to actually begin the experiments. We managed to accumulate two electrical cords, four wall outlets, and what looked like a badly decorated flamingo in a pear tree. At my house, we gathered some crayons and cheap cardboard boxes and settled into the serious business of disseminating what made the plugs and outlets tick. (We plan for further studies to research clocks) I plugged the flamingo into the wall to help us think.

Fred began by making caustic comments about the cords’ length and diameter. Our goal was to see whether we could cause impotence, or the lack of flow of electrons, in the wires. Under free association, we realized simultaneously that to be "plugged in" was a constant state of orgasm for both the feminine and masculine aspects of electrical genitalia. The psychological trauma research was dropped temporarily as we sought to find some sort of biological equivalent to this state of being so as to grok in fullness.

Four hours later I roused myself and unplugged the refrigerator. During the previous experimentation, a part of my mind had become quite the detached scientist and had begun to contemplate how deprivation would affect the normal operation of a piece of equipment that was used to constant gratification. After some time had passed, a strange smell began to permeate the room. Hurriedly Fred scribbled down on her sheets of cardboard thoughts that raced through her rigorously scientific mind. Obviously the eggs of the host mother had spoilt. From that it followed that the incubation of the ovum required some hormone that was released during quasi-electrical orgasm. Once again we sat down to test our hypothesis and their bearings on the biological world. However, the strain grew too great, and we decided to do a second test run to validate out previous findings of the first experiment.

A loud knocking disturbed us in the middle of our experiment. Annoyedly, I left Fred to carry on some individual examination, and answered the door. A very distraught and harried Bob ran past me. I turned curiously, slowly shutting the front door, and re-latching it. Shortly, thereafter, several muffled thuds and yips were heard. It seems Bob was near fanatically interested in our research, and once he stopped his mad yammerings about being chased, helped our group with some quite brilliant insights. Sometimes our greatest thinkers tend to blur the lines of reality and fantasy.

Following Bob’s first suggestion¹, we plugged in as many appliances into as many outlets as we possibly could. He was rather secretive as to the purpose of this, but all trusted to his wisdom. I for one was sure he wished to observe group, perhaps ritualistic, mating habits, while Fred debated that Bob had the intention of recording the duration of such said activity. Bob was steadfastly not forthcoming, and we eventually tired of tormenting his genius with out limited and short-sighted questions.

Bob’s second experimental idea was to put surge-protectors or fuses at each of the points of copulation². We carefully studied the reactions of various components put under this severe psychological torture. Fred determined from her observations that the electrical cords showed great determination in the face of adversity.

Meanwhile Bob had locked himself in the bathroom. Obviously the strain of having such an active mind had been too much for his flesh; whimpering could be heard from inside. We took his parting as a chance to finish our second test run under original conditions.

Several hours later we finished our third trial run of the testing of our first hypothesis, and we rose to check on Bob’s well-being. After jiggling the handle some I remembered that the lock didn’t actually work and that the door opened into the bathroom. We found Bob quietly sprawled on the floor with some spittle bubbling from his mouth. Deciding that due to the late hour and the obvious exhaustion of everyone in the group we should conclude our experimentation, Fred declared one last test.

Bob, not declining the honour bestowed upon him, submitted to having two wires from one of the electrical cords attached to his very own genitalia. Thus we witnessed what we felt was a very heartwarming cross of prejudicial boundaries. Some smoke wafted up from the connections, but we attribute this to impurities in the wire. We decided to retire to Fred’s place for the night and to leave the experiment running for the duration of our departure.

The next morning we returned to check on the results of our experiment. To our horror and dismay we saw a devastating sight. Our mentor had disappeared. The electrical cords must have turned on him during the night! In blind fury, we attacked every piece of electrical equipment we could get our manipulative digits upon. We wreaked vengeance with fist, teeth, toenails, sledge hammers, and peppermint.

Once we had recovered out reasoning capabilities, we sat down and quietly mourned the loss of our dear friend and esteemed colleague. We then, for the sake of humanity at large, and the memory of one of the greatest thinkers of our time, set about documenting the events and findings that had occurred and been discovered over the last twenty-four hour period.

In memorial to Bob, we cleared the place of electrical equipment, piled our salvage in the middle of the back yard, and set it on fire. At this time a most miraculous thing occurred! Bob appeared! He was as overjoyed to see us as we were to see him, and he rushed straight for us, arms opened wise, with an axe in his left hand, presumably to help us repel and obliterate the technological menace.

As he neared us he reached back, a maniacal, loving grin on his face, and he swu[thunk]

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1:Bob suggested copulation with as many various organisms as possible, presumably electrical in nature.³
2:His second suggestion was in effect to limit the delta E so as to keep the components on the verge of orgasm⁴
3:"Fuck you! Fuck you all!"
4:"Dammit all"