Welcome to Theory Train Magazine.
We are pleased to present to you a collection of speculative fiction poetry and fiction. Visit us at theorytrain.com or email us at theorytrain@gmail.com.
Editor in Chief Luis Galvan
Managing Editor Eileen Young
Selection Board Adam Schreckenberger and Michelle Ristuccia
Cover by Tristan Tinder
http://eiti-nyeh.deviantart.com/
ISSN 1925-2439
All contributions are copyright © 2010 by the individual contributors.
Contents
Jack Ritter Theory Ball
N.P. Miller The Clockwork Feline
Michael Cnudde Chasing Fate
Valentina Cano Holy Birth
Korliss Sewer (Elena)
Colin James Lap Dogs of the Inferno
Mason Kochanski Aequorial Apperception
Laura Bradford Waitress in Training
David Pointer Steamville Photoplay Fest
Joe Jablonski Scorched Earth
David McLean The Skinny Zombies
Theory Ball
By Jack Ritter
Jack writes poetry, flash fiction, and comedy. His writing has appeared in Austin International Poetry Festival's 2008 anthology, Red River Review- Aug 2010, and 2010-2 Illya’s Honey. By trade, he’s a video game programmer. He’s published original algorithms in 3D graphics. He also creates large format ink-jet art prints.
Theory Ball can also be found on the Featured Prose section of TheoryTrain.com.
I have a pet theory. It states that the universe exists ultimately in the form of a bicycle. This hypothesis is no laughing matter. I keep my pet theory in my left front pocket.
There are those who would seek to kill it by disproving it. They are competent physicists, mind you. But they would hold my bicycle theory up to the light, and puncture it with sharp logic. They would be successful, for my theory is not yet fact, because it's so new. That's why it must stay in my front pocket to incubate, except for at night, when I take it out and fondle it.
Night is a good time to work on it. I roll it around in my hands, concentrating on the universe as I do so. It feels like a warm egg, but it's more like an ornate Christmas tree bulb, with little peep holes. Technically, it's called "an infinitely thin, super massive Yule ovoid with portals." If you look through them you can see its physical nature: lots of little crispy copper bugs spinning on their backs, with their spastic legs reaching up, then passing through exquisitely jeweled micro worm-holes, and back down again toward themselves, so they can manufacture themselves by manipulating the symbols on their backs which represent what they are. Such is the look of a young theory, not to be confused with its content. On the backs of those bugs is the stuff of bicycles.
Typically, I theorize merrily into the night. I run my theory ball back and fourth through my mind, combing it for new thoughts. Or maybe it combs me. Sometimes they're the same thing, and that feels mighty fine.
Recently, it's been changing. It's a rolling down-hill idea. Each night it becomes more willful: less and less like a mere representation of the universe, and more and more like a blueprint for it. It is becoming the de facto source of the universe: as its tires revolve, it grinds out reality like fine sausage. Its handle bars slowly pivot, and space-time changes direction accordingly. Its bell rings, and waves of Grand Unification are delivered throughout the cosmos.
I don't believe in the Big Bang. I believe in the Little Ding. Without the bell, there would only be massive forces pounding away at each other, like those other scientists' theories, with all that dust and gas and spewing. My theory doesn't have any such unpleasantness. My theory is a nice theory. It has a bell.
The spokes are hydrogen filaments that keep all matter woven together as a lush, interdependent tapestry- far more aesthetic than their "gravity," a last-minute wildebeest of an idea. I've also added pedals and a chain, so the galaxies can be cranked round and round. The chain is made of a special alloy, as some galaxies can be quite cumbersome.
But my little clockwork gizmo is growing quickly. It demands to see the light of day. My front pocket will soon burst. I’ve been going to a tailor regularly. Each alteration is more challenging than the last. He looks at me through his monocle (monocle!). But he never asks questions. I always pay in cash.
When the final explosion comes, a jangling tangle of spokes and sprockets and gears and round things will be transmitted throughout the universe, and the universe will read these as instructions, reorganizing itself so as to conform. Gladly will the heavens crank and jangle with foolish delight, for they have had to endure eons of ponderous gravitational theory. They have even grown weary of relativity. Of course, it is only my theory that the universe will act upon these instructions. This is itself a side theory. (I keep it in my side pocket.)
Nothing can stop me now, NOTHING! Well, nothing, if you don't count my pocket pet being detected by a rare Theory Ball Recognizer Telescope (or, "TBRT"). Let me explain.
I'm not the only player in the industry. There is a small, underground group of interstellar researchers who use theory ball telescopes to detect rival theories. They, like I, believe in the theory that reality follows theory, and not the other way around. We deal in the theory of theory. We call our field, "Theory-Theory." Many of them have clusters of their own, incubating in their pockets. I myself created these other theoreticians long ago, by positing their existence. (I remember it well: it was a fragrant, humid night.) They, sadly, labor under the delusion that they created me. Fortunately, there are too few of them to stop me. Anywhoo, that's the down side of this business.
Now, it is imperative, imperative, that I stop thinking about them and their TBRTs. Stop I must. But I can't. I keep rolling the idea over and over in my mind. It is growing, because that's the way it is with ideas.
In fact, it is now a small lump in my BACK pocket, a new and dangerous theory ball, the worst kind of theory ball: a Theory-Theory theory ball! As it grows, more and more theory ball telescopes are popping into existence, along with hordes of new theoreticians to man them. I sit here machinating, while galaxies are being filled with theorizing rabble. Sooner or later, one of them will discover me. Then he'll try to defeat my plan by inventing some ad hoc, half-baked, anti-bicycle postulate. The end in near.
I've been so obsessed with my front pocket's debut, I've failed to notice this new lump in my back pocket: now it's about to burst. A good egg and a bad egg are in a deadly race to be hatched. Soon, one will explode, defeating the other. They're running about dead even. (You know, I never trusted that tailor, or his monocle- monocle!) Oh no, ... any second now, ... one of them is about to blow. If you like bicycles, pray it's the one in front!