The Wellington Park Incident

�Ultimately, I know- we all know nothing.� -Bickford Schmeckler

 

One day, while sitting on a bench, which was located in one of the most beautiful parks, situated in the Northeastern United States, a man, who for the purposes of this story we’ll call John, ate his lunch.   John was a man plagued by logic, and facts, and numbers, and proofs; he was an accountant for a very large, multinational corporation, and spent most his day mindlessly staring at figures, and spreadsheets, and payrolls, and transactions, et cetera, et cetera.   I wouldn’t go so far as to say that John absolutely loved his job, but he didn’t consider it his least favorite thing (this was reserved for going to the post office and his sister’s house on Thanksgiving).   What John truly enjoyed was watching, people mostly, though, from time to time, you’d be able to find him glancing at the odd squirrel, or two.  And so, on his lunch break, everyday, John would come down to this beautiful park, eat his sandwich (Peppercorn turkey & Muntser, on sourdough, with lettuce and tomato, light mayonnaise), in order to relax, and watch.  (It is important to keep in mind that none of this watching was done in a disturbing manner; watching was not an obsession, just a hobby.)

This day, Wednesday, was John’s favorite day of the week to watch, because on Wednesday some fellows from the College held a football game on the field across from John’s favorite bench.  He was not a fan of sports on the professional level for a number of reasons.  The main one being that he could only enjoy sports live, but did not enjoy paying the exorbitant amounts to see them; so this weekly football game was the closest he ever came to caring about football.

Being that during the game John placed all his attention between the game and the sandwich, he did not notice when someone sat right next to him, until he heard a quick voice say:

“How do you feel about the Universe?”

Surprised by the company, John looked at to his left.  A man, not much younger than himself, maybe five years or so, sat there. John noticed that he looked fidgety and had a hard time sitting still.

“Excuse me?” John asked, quite confused by his question, and trying to understand what he meant.

“How do you feel about the Universe?” he echoed with a voice that too seemed like it had a hard time sitting still.  John, who was not used to talking during his lunch breaks, tried to collect his thoughts, which he had forgotten about in light in of the game, to try and answer the question as best he could:

“Um...it’s...okay, I guess.”

“You guess? Well that’s not very reassuring You can’t propagate the Universe with that kind of attitude Do you think tourist spots say 'Come to Hawaii you might have a good time here maybe' No of course not  How do you sell t-shirts like that?  They say ‘We’re the best bloody place you’ll ever go to So spend all your money here’ Now that’s how you sell a t-shirt and the idea you should have about the Universe Am I right? Or am I right?”

“Um...sure,” John said unsure of what he was agreeing with.

“I thought so I mean it’s better than the alternative.”

“Which is?” John asked, wondering where this was all going.

“Nothingness of course I mean if you’re not in the universe you can’t be anything And if you can’t be anything you’re nothing and then you don’t exist Right?”

“Yea, I guess.”

“You guess too much You have to know well actually you can’t do that either You have to believe more.” He gave a little laugh at the end of this statement.  Actually, it was more of a honk than a laugh, like a goose being run over by a car.

“Why can’t I know?”

“Well who really knows anything? I mean knowing is just really believing what a bunch of people agreed on.”

“What?”

“Well a long time ago people knew the Earth was flat because a bunch of people agreed on the belief that it was flat Then someone believed that the Earth was actually a sphere and then more people believed that so that became the new know Now we know the world is really pear shaped because people believe that So in a million years if enough people believe the Earth is a cylinder that’ll be the new know and what we know now will become irrelevant and everyone will think that we’re stupid for even thinking that world is pear shaped.”

      “But isn’t what we know now based on proof?” John asked trying to find some kind of hole in the stranger’s theory that no one can know anything.

      “Has anyone ever proven anything to you?”

      “Um...no...I guess not.”

      “You believe not.”

      “Yea, but still, it’s been proven to other people.”

      “Are those people more important than you so much so that they get to know and you just have to take their word for it?”

      “Um...” John wasn’t exactly sure how to answer this.  Thankfully, though, the stranger interjected his thought process with an outrageous claim:

      “And proof is irrelevant anyway I mean I can prove that he trees behind us don’t exist.” John looked at the trees behind them; they were certainly there, without a doubt.

      “Really?” he asked, “And how would you do that?”

      “Well step number one is look straight ahead and make sure you can’t see trees.”  John turned himself all the way around, and faced the football game, same as the stranger.  Then the stranger said, “Can you see the trees behind us?”

      “No.”

      “Then how can you be sure that they’re actually there?”

      “Because I just saw them,” John said wondering if the stranger was heading for something philosophical, or if he was just stupid.

      “Well they were there then What if they’re not there now?”

      “How could they not be there?  What would they do?  Just get up and walk away?” The stranger laughed slightly at this.

      “John trees don’t walk If anything they’d slither.”  Confounded by this absurd notion, it wasn’t until later that John realized that he’d never told the stranger his name.

“But that’s neither here nor there,” the stranger continued, “The point is what if when you turned around to look at the football game those trees disappeared?  You wouldn’t know would you?”

      “Is this like that cat in the box, philosophical junk?” John said quite annoyed.  “Where if you put a cat in a box with poison, and leave it alone, you can’t know if the poison killed the cat,” he’d always hated whenever anyone talked about the flaws of perception, and now realized that this was the point the stranger had been making the whole time.  In fact, he was probably trying to recruit John for some cult that would eventually make him castrate himself, and participate in mass suicide.  However, John noticed that there was a very large grin across the stranger’s face.

      “You’re a smart guy John,” (who still didn’t realize that he and the stranger had not exchanged names) said the stranger. “I’ll give you that But what if when you turned around those trees still weren’t there? What would you think of the Universe then?”

      “I don’t know what I’d think, because it isn’t possible.”

      “Really? I’ll bet you twenty dollars that those trees aren’t there when you turn around.”

      John turned his head, and saw the trees behind them, just as they always had been, not moving, not uprooting themselves, not slithering away.

      “They’re still there.”  The stranger jumped and exclaimed:

      “What!?! You’re kidding!!”  John now knew that this man had not been aiming at some deep purpose, and was clearly just a stupid, silly man.  Then he turned back around to watch the football game and eat his lunch.  The stranger, a few seconds later, turned around and folded his arms, his face a mixture of frustration and confusion.

      “Alright how about double or nothing? Forty dollars says that when turn around those trees will not be there.”

      “No.  I already turned around, the trees were there, and you owe me twenty dollars.”

      “Sixty?”

      “No.”

      “Eighty?” pleaded the stranger.

      “No.”

      “One Hundred dollars says that those trees will not be there.”

      “No.”

      “C’mon, John,” his voice was no longer quick, but rather groveling.

      “Alright, fine. I will turn my head and those trees will be there.  And then you will get up from this bench, and leave me alone.” 

The stranger paused, for a second.  “Deal,” he said. 

John put his Turkey & Munster sandwich down in utter frustration; as he looked back, he could not see the grin return to the stranger’s face, but he, because John couldn’t realize at that moment what happens when you assume, did say:

      “See, the trees are sti-“ then John had to stop; it wasn’t just that there was a piece of Peppercorn turkey stuck in his throat, but, also, if he had finished his statement (which would have been “See, the trees are still there, like they were before.”) he would have been wrong.  Because when he looked back, to confirm for the second time that there were most definitely trees behind the bench, not a one was.  Not a single one.  And he would have known if there was, because he looked up and down that side of the park, and could not find a single tree.  He scanned the entire plane from left to right, and not one single sign remained that there had ever been trees there; not a stick, nor a leaf, not even a spring blossom, just a whole lot of nothingness.  John looked at the stranger, who just sat on the bench staring straight ahead, with a grin on his face.

      “What do you see, John?” he asked.

      “How...How...How...How did you do that?”

      “Do what?”

      “What do you mean what!?!” John asked very angrily, he was getting annoyed with this man. “How did you make the trees disappear?!”

      “Oh that,” he said. “I didn’t do that They did I guess they didn’t feel like being in this Universe anymore.”

      “What does that mean?  Trees don’t just disappear like that,” John said, practically yelling now.

      “Oh calm down John sure they do You just have to catch them at the right moment They’ll be back in a second or at least I believe they will,” he looked back at the emptiness and shrugged his shoulders, “Who knows?”

      John looked at the emptiness and wondered aloud:

      “Did anyone else see this?”  But the quick voice never answered back; he looked to where the stranger should have been sitting, but he was gone; then John looked back to the nothingness and saw that the trees has returned, exactly where they’d been before.

Reviews

[MadasonBlue]

Wow. That gave me chills.