Book of Jim: Agnostic Parables and Dick Jokes From Lucifer's Paradise Read Online Free PDF Page A

deep and frazzled hair jumped out of the head.  Jim knew the face.
    “Einstein?”
    “You goddamn crazy hillbilly!” Einstein said.  “I finally found it!  The edge of paradise , I had it at my fingertips, and you blew it out your noggin!”
    “Me?”
    “That goddamn hillbilly brain of yours.  I don’t know what you’ve been thinking, or how you thought it up, but for the love of science forget about it.  Get in, I’ll explain on the way.”
    So Jim got in and Einstein floored it.  The engine of the 1969 Ford F-100 pick-up truck roared.  There was still no frame of reference but Jim could feel the acceleration of the truck, and the darkness became as a bumpy gravel road.
    “What’s wrong with thinking?”  Jim said.  He wanted there to be something wrong with his thinking, but he couldn’t think of a reason for it.
    “Not all thinking.  Certain kinds of it.  Philosophy .”
    “So what’s wrong with philosophy?”
    “It’s phenomenally retarded.”
    “What?”
    “This place, paradise , it gives dimensionality to our thoughts.  It is difficult to picture, but think of spacetime as the surface of a balloon, a very big balloon, and everything you experience is experienced on that surface.  All of these fulfilled desires must occupy a certain amount of spacetime on the surface area of the balloon, and each new desire expands it.  Without expansion there can be nothing new.  The obvious question, then, is what fuels the expansion?  What fills the balloon?”
    Jim guessed, “Dark matter.”  Einstein ignored this and continued,
    “It is our thoughts themselves, the volume of which is perfectly proportional to the surface area of the phenomenal sphere, as long as the thoughts produce phenomena.  If you want a turkey sandwich, the desire fills the balloon, the sandwich occupies the surface, and proportionality is preserved.  If, however, you wonder why the turkey sandwich is a turkey sandwich, the wonder fills the balloon but there is no surface expansion to compensate.  Do you see why this is problematic?”
    “Kind of.” 
    “Soon there will be too much air in the balloon, and paradise will pop !”
    Jim considered this in silence.  For though Einstein had forbidden thinking, he had said nothing about consideration .  So the 1969 Ford F-100 pick-up truck roared through the gravel of darkness, and Jim considered spacetime and phenomenal spheres.  When the considering time was over, he said,
    “So, what you’re saying is, philosophy is bullshit.”
    “And it will destroy paradise .”
    “And if that’s true, then there aren’t really an infinite number of Jims.”
    “What!?  Who is Jim?!”
    “I’m Jim.”
    “You goddamn crazy hillbilly!”
    3
    So Jim came to the edge of paradise , and he beheld that it was a brick wall.  The brick wall went up forever, it went down forever, and it went to both sides forever.  It was infinite.  And at the bottom there was a neat row of hedges and a sidewalk and the sidewalk was lit with lampposts.
    Einstein parked the 1969 Ford F-100 pick-up truck in the parking lot next to a public restroom.  There were also some benches and swingsets and picnic tables and an Information Gazebo.  On the asphalt lay a flyer that said, Live Death on the Edge!  And beneath the slogan were some directions.
    Jim said, “This place used to be a tourist trap?”
    Einstein nodded.  “The edge was once a twenty dollar cab ride.  But as philosophy approaches the critical point of asininity, the expansion of paradise makes the journey impractical.”
    “So why are we here?”
    “I need to go through.”
    “Through the brick wall?”
    “To the other side.  To the antiverse .”
    Einstein went forth along the sidewalk and Jim followed.  Though the scientist strolled with a firm gait, Jim struggled to keep his feet, and several times he began to float away.  Upon each floating, the scientist grabbed him by the foot and pulled him back into orientation.
    Upon