I chuckle when I see negatron. What an arch way to say
electron, it isn't like its positronic evil twin is
on everyone's mind all the time. Then
there's tardyon. It's just as well
that there is a word for particles slower than light. Like
a word for fish that stay in water. I like
words for such comforting ideas. The scientists must, too, for
why else would there be two surplus words for
a spectacularly vanilla species? They must want every last
tardyon, bardyon or ittyon to
ward off the tachyons at large. Speaking of tachyon, I like talkie.
I'm tickled by "Madras Talkies". We won't be showing you intertitles, they
assure me. We have 1x framespeed.
Perhaps the working title of every Jane Austen novel was
"Straight People".
There must be a word for these words, tinted mirrors on which
images of the commonplace shimmer in
and out.
Like earthling. I like earthling. It brings up that picture of
our watery orb sighted as an exoplanet, a picture I fancy more than the
Pale Blue Dot. See, I'm partial to earthling because it takes
earthlings to hang up inward-looking telescopes on the firmament to squint at
earthlings.
These are the telescopes -- I'm switching metaphors here -- that resolve me as a
mortal, noting how I don't fling javelins of lightning. They photograph me as a
muggle, seeing as I don't travel by broom. They file me as
wetware, zooming into my CAPTCHA tests. They scan my innards,
nod at each other. Non-gravid, they agree, perhaps following a pregnant
pause.
