Heisenberg Strikes

Once upon a time there was a Prince who, woefully, thought he was a Toad.

"Oh, woe is me!" he cried, carefully looking around to see if anyone was noticing his artfully attenuated histronics.

An Angel appeared from nowhere and took pity on him; not because he was in pain, or because he was suffering nobley, or because he was world-weary. She pitied him because he was obviously wasting his time, and would be wasting the time of those around him, should they be so foolish as to invest their time so. She always hated to see people needlessly wasting their time, because she understood the timeless enigma that time, because it's a limited commodity, is precious.

Now the main problem in situations like this is that people so obsessed don't usually notice the angels around them, mostly for the simple reason that they're looking elsewhere all the time. They're looking in places such as; mirrors, department store windows, web pages, their old writings, bowls of soggy cereal, the interstitial spaces in their hairbrushes (checking for gray hairs), etc., etc.

But just then, a subatomic particle from outer space came buzzing, swooping, whirling down from the cosmos and whupped him upside the head. Momentarily, he was distracted from his present ponderment over the Crisis Facing His Nation just long enough to notice the Angel looking over him with loving eyes.

"That's strange," he thought. "Why's she looking at me like that?"

Of course, this gave the Angel great pain in her heart. She went away, cried, ministered to others around her—those aware of her presence—but never forgot the Prince.

But little did she know that the particle that hit the Prince was the fabled truon, speculated to exist in scientific circles only at the peril of not obtaining tenure. Yes, there are a few things that even angels do not know.

The truon (some insist) zooms through the cosmos interminably, until it is cancelled out by the fulfillment of a dream. Others think there are only eleven truons in the entire universe, and are consumed by a chance collision with a particular vintage Studebaker in a museum in Angoulême, France. It has been suggested that, when all truons are consumed, the world (as we know it) will end. As can well be expected, most people don't care. At this time, none of these hypotheticals have been satisfactorily researched.

But all that's neither here nor there.

Perhaps this truon triggered aetheric modifications in the Prince's neural processing. Maybe his heart was subtly changed by acausal non-effects along its trajectory. Maybe. We'll never know.

We do know that, one day, the Prince looked up from a particularly fascinating session of "Mind Yourself" to say, "Wait a minute? Who was that person, anyway?"

What he didn't see was at that very moment the truon flew up behind him, momentarily mused, "Well, my work is done here," and whizzed off to other sentient quarters in the living universe to create yet more havoc.

But from that point, the Prince started to change. He still thought he was a Toad, but was suddenly, inexplicably open to a second opinion.

It was at this point that the Angel just so happened to chance by.

Again, she lovingly smiled at the Prince, because that is what angels—even those with broken hearts—do.

This time, the Prince miraculously considered the possibility that this might be the second opinion he was looking for.

The Angel blinked, and looked again, and Lo! saw that indeed some salutary change had come over the Prince. "Lo!" she said.

" 'Lo, yourself," said the Prince. "Would you like to go somewhere and talk for a while? A beer emporium? A park? My place? Your place?"

And, sooth, the Angel looked heavenward, expressed her thanks in a strange, diaphanous, heavenly tongue, and took the Prince up on the offer.

And they talked and talked 'til the Bovine Creatures returned to their Respective Places of Residence. Many miraculous things happened. Love became possible. Hope became present. Adoration was in evidence. And Life became a going concern for the Prince.

And everybody lived happily ever after.

...and may all persons, of all stations, aristicratic or just plain folks, high or lowly, hip or unhip, happy or unhappy, take solace from this humble little fable.


Moral:
If you can't find a ready-made truon, quit your bellyaching and roll your own.