Damn! It's cold up here at the North Pole! Yep, It's a fine kettle of
fish that I've gotten myself into now. You see, I'm an elf. Oh, I
wasn't always an elf. In fact, it wasn't all that long ago that I was a
human being just like you. However, some years ago, I got myself
into this mess, and now I can't get myself out. Such a deal! It all
began because I was kinda slow. You see, I'd been raised a
Christian and had to go to Sunday School when I was just a little
tike. Later, Ma got a bug in her bun and sent me to one of those
Churchy, Christian schools where a kid can't even see how high he
can pee on a wall without someone getting all out of joint about it.
I was always in trouble, but they were determined to make a
devout believer and a good Christian out of me whatever it took.
Well, in a hog's ear, as I always say. "I don't believe in nothing!
Well, I don't believe in that churchy stuff anyway, but I do believe
in Santa all right, though. Boy, do I ever! But I'm getting ahead of
myself... Back to school! Yeah, things went from bad to worse,
and I was in and out of more of those religious schools than you
could shake a rubber duck at. Oh, I had my troubles all right, and
kept getting things all screwed up. I couldn't read worth a darn
and writing was beyond me. All of those little characters would
just swim around on the pages as if they were alive, flipping first
one way and then the other, and then they would swap places.
Talk about confusing! I just couldn't figure it out. There is a
name for my problem, but back then, they weren't aware that such
a condition even existed. I think the name for my condition is
dyslexia or something like that, anyway.
They kept on trying to teach me, and I kept on trying to learn, but I
just couldn't do it. They were embarrassed to admit that they
couldn't teach me the three R's, so after a while, they began to just
cover my condition up and play like it wasn't there. Anyway, they
kept on passing me up the grades whether I could read or not.
Then at last, I graduated High School, and there were no more
church schools to which they could send me-- except for some
church colleges. However, I couldn't pass their entrance exams, so
I had no choice but to get a job. Of course, the only job I could get
was that of a janitor.
Odd, how things work out; I couldn't get into college as a student,
but my first job was working for one as a custodian. Though, it
wasn't all bad. You see, I was the same age as most of the
students, and a lot of them let me party with them. That's where I
met Linda, the lab tech. She worked for a Doctor Waters, who did
neurological experimentation on those little white mice with the
pink noses. He used to run them through mazes to test their
intelligence. That way, he could discover which mice were smart
and which ones were stupid. Then once he was sure which ones
were which, he could experiment with them. I found out that he
wanted to make the stupid mice smart and the smart mice stupid.
He did that by injecting a bunch of chemicals into them. Boy, oh
boy, there were a couple of times where those mice just about went
crazy when he dosed them with his smart and stupid medicines.
At first, Doctor Waters lost quite a few mice, as a lot of them just
went nuts, chasing their tails so fast that they finally just flipped
over and died. Sometimes, it was pretty scary when they would
fight one another to the death. It was pretty violent too-- all teeth
and claws. They literally chewed each other to death. Those mice
have really long, sharp teeth. Vicious too, you know. Doc Waters
says that their teeth keep on growing so fast that they have to keep
chewing on things to wear them down. I just though of something
funny; If the mice didn't wear down their teeth, they would
become saber-toothed mice. Ha, Ha, Ha, Can you imagine? Once
one of those mice even attacted a cat after getting loose and
making its way into a room where the Doctor kept the larger lab
animals.
Finally, after a lot of failures, old Doc Waters finally seemed to get
his formulas right, and the mice he injected with his new serum
seemed to really thrive. They could run the maze better and faster
than any of the untreated mice and really acted smart, far
surpassing their peers in every aspect of the intelligence tests. One
mouse that Doc nicknamed "Marty Mouse" became a super mouse
after a series of injections of an even more refined version of the
"Magic Mouse Elixir". Not only could Marty out distance the
other mice in the maze race, but he started to show more
intelligence in that he started trying to communicate with us.
Doc rigged up a kind of a keyboard similar to those used to teach
monkeys how to get a banana, except that Doc put mouse stuff on
the keys. It was no problem for Marty to master that keyboard,
and soon Doc noticed that Marty was intently watching him type
on his computer keyboard. Doc started letting Marty have the run
of the lab, and one day when Doc came back from lunch, he found
that Marty had written him a letter on the computer. There it was
on the screen in perfect English. Marty had asked the Doc to
teach him math. Well why not, thought Doc and punched up a
beginning math program for Marty to play with.
It was only a few days before Marty picked up basic math and
wanted to start on algebra lessons. Doc said, "What the Heck,"
and ran the algebra program for his prize mouse. Well after that,
there was no stopping Marty, and the passing days found him
conquering geometry, trigonometry and calculus as easy as eating
cheese. That's when Marty got interested in physics. He had this
funny way of understanding abstract logic, and pretty soon, Marty
Mouse started developing his theorem on a new hyper dimensional
physics that stood the academic community on its ear. I guess that
was because it worked and answered a lot of questions that had
bothered the best physicists for years. Of course, Marty was now
using base 16, hexadecimal math as the old, base 10 decimal
system was too limited for his needs.
It wasn't long before Marty had developed time travel, dimensional
shift and interstellar transport by folding space. Soon, men were
leaping across time and space, popping in and out of worm holes
and sidestepping the here-to-for long distances between solar
systems. Marty even developed a fairly simple device to plot a
seven dimensional course that would take travelers from anywhere
to anywhere else in the blink of an eye, past, present or future.
At last the dream of colonizing the universe was accessible to
mankind. In just a few months, because of Marty's inventions and
new math, man had escaped the surly bonds of Earth and escaped
the prison of his native planet that had held him down for so many
years. In months, man had accomplished what he had dreamed
about for aeons without even looking back. Because of a mouse,
mankind was free-- and so were mice! Yes, mice went to the stars
with men, as every new space vessel had to have a "Super Mouse"
along to navigate as only such a mouse could comprehend the new
logic and correctly navigate the celestial fields of a seven
dimensional universe.
Well, like I said, Doc used to let me help out around the lab, and
after a while, I started noticing him looking at me with a longing
expression. Well, I wasn't too smart, but even I could see that Doc
wanted to try his new serum on me to see what would happen.
Mice and men are pretty similar, you know. I know that he
wanted to do it, but he didn't dare ask me. That is when I got to
thinking about things in general and realized that I wasn't too
happy with my life as it was. Like I said, I was kind of dumb and
had this anomaly called dyslexia that always held me back. The
truth be known, I was jealous of Marty Mouse and couldn't
understand why that little ball of white fur could do all those
wonderful things while I could only sweep and mop the floor.
That's when I decided to change things. I wanted to become. I
wanted to become like Marty. No, that's not true. I wanted to
become much more than Marty. I wanted to become as a God and
control the very universe, creating and destroying by the word of
my mouth. That's why one afternoon when Doc had to leave the
lab for a meeting, I snuck into the medicine cabinet and took some
of Doc's serum and a syringe. I made sure that I had the very latest
batch and filled the hypodermic syringe with what I figured was a
human-sized dose of smart juice. I wiped some alcohol on my arm
like I had seen Doc do, shut my eyes and stuck in the needle.
When my heart quit pounding, I opened my eyes and slowly
pushed that clear, yellowish fluid into the big artery that moved
blood up my arm to my heart. It felt cold. When the tube was
empty, I pulled out the needle and placed a ball of alcohol soaked
cotton over the little prick and closed my arm tight to put pressure
on the hole and stop the bleeding. I felt weird. Things got all
fuzzy and woozy, but I figured that it was just the serum going to
work on me. I passed out. Later, the Doc found me lying on the
floor with the broken glass syringe on the floor next to me. Then
picking me up, he carried me over to the little cot in the corner and
laid me on it while he tested my vital signs.
He knew what I had done and was afraid to call anyone for fear
that he would be blamed. Instead, he made me comfortable and
kept me warm until I woke up several hours later. What an
experience! The veil of stupid had lifted, and for the first time in
my life, my mind was clear and sharp. I could think! I mean, I
could really think, and the whole world opened up for me.
Somehow, I tapped into that wellspring of genetic knowledge
where I knew what all men knew and had known for thousands of
years. I had the knowing! I knew how it all worked and I was as a
God. I could create anything or make anything happen. If I
desired anything, I could have it. Oh, the inventions that I
patented! First, I discovered how to broadcast power, and then I
learned how to tap into the power of the Universe. No more was it
necessary for men to carry voluminous quantities of fuel with them
when they traveled the starry skies. Now, they could just tap in
and withdraw all the power that they needed from space itself.
Everything went so well until Marty started getting dumb again.
Yes, he started slowing down and lost the ability to reason. He
was degrading a little each day, and after a while, it really became
noticeable. One day, He couldn't even talk to us anymore, and if
anything, he even got more stupid than he was when he started.
This really scared me, as if it was happening to Marty, it would
probably happen to me too. That's why I hurried and created as
many new inventions as I could before I too, started degrading.
There were a lot of mice, and one could replace the other, but there
was only one of me.
Well, in time, I started losing my edge and I could feel my smarts
slipping away like sand draining out of a broken hour glass. I was
getting desperate! Doc tried to help me, but the serum had no
effect. Apparently it had accelerated my mental processes and
burned up all of my smarts potential in that brief time that I was a
genius. No, No, No, I didn't want to be stupid and dumb again, so
that's when I decided to make a deal with the Devil. Yes, I'd sell
my soul to keep my smarts and be a genius again. The damn
dyslexia was getting worst too. I didn't dare wait any longer for
fear of becoming so dense that I couldn't save myself. At last,
after reading some diabolical books, I cut my thumb and wrote out
my agreement with the Devil and signed it in my own blood. Too
bad about that dyslexia. I got Satan mixed up with Santa. Yes, I
sold my soul to Santa, and that's why I'm here at the North Pole,
knee deep in reindeer poop, polishing harness for the Christmas
Eve transglobal flight. Oh well, you know what they say about
"The best laid plans of mice and men!"
Leved
