My railing, desire to break and bend
And make that infernal ticking—
Jabberwocky 2
T’was frollick in the tulgy wood
With burbled brandies indagrabe,
W’ilt pseudosinkers fullen stood
Elst bethot mimsy in the wabe.
The Jaberwock raised its head
Despite a wounding most severe
Turns out t’was not truly dead
With head in hand, as t’was severe'd.
Resuscitated by grave plot device,
Some staples and a glob of glue,
Some therapeutic massage and ice
A tenacious beast, that much is true.
"Come fight again, oh beamish boy
You think that you’re so tough?
I was just warming up, oh joy
I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough!"
Again th'lad turned to face the foe
His vorpal sword snicker-snack'd aloft
It’s brainbox balanced on its neck just so
A simple tap sent it tumbling off.
"Oh dang!” the creature turned to pursue,
Seeking to retrieve its rolling head.
The beamish boy stabbed until he slew,
Which is to say, the Jabberwock, dead.
Oh wondrous day, this is sublime
You’ve done it twice, you’ve done it well
(Something, something else to rhyme)
Post to Facebook, LOL!
T’was frollick in the tulgy wood
With burbled brandies indagrabe,
W’ilt pseudosinkers fullen stood
Elst bethot mimsy in the wabe.
Appendix D: the MacGuffin Equation
It is, of course, impossible to include Dr. Rupert MacGuffin's many papers here or even offer any sort of meaningful explanation of his work. His theories were broad, controversial, and brilliant beyond comprehension. At least that was the assumption, given that ipso facto, the people saying this didn't know what they were talking about. It has even been suggested that some of his theories were so brilliant, that he himself did not understand them. Sometimes, however, his theories were surprisingly simple. One example was his view of multiple universes. Some physicists argue that the Big Bang may be cyclical, having occurred an infinite number of times in the past and set to occur an infinite number of times in the future. Others have argued for fancy pants multidimensional models, with different universes existing concurrently in different planes of reality. Rupert believed that, if there were other universes, they were probably just adjacent to our own or, as he put it, "a little to the left." He figured that at some point, when we were able to view our universe externally in some totally inconceivable manner, there'd be an 'ah-ha' moment, when someone would notice another universe next to it. "Oh that universe" they'd say, nonchalantly, trying act is if they'd known it was there all along, "Well, yes, I suppose there is always that universe." Of course, Rupert MacGuffin wasn't the only physicist to conceive of infinite universes beyond the 'cosmological horizon', but he was the first to coin a term for the idea of multiple Big Bangs. He called them 'Splats'. He dubbed our own universe Splat No. 37. When asked why 37, he responded, "Well, we're not the first and we're not the last, so 37 seems as good a guess as any. Why? Have you got a better number?" This term was largely ignored by the scientific community and remains in disuse to this day.
Of course, he threw away all of this thinking as merely transitory when he developed his Theory of Complete and Utter Chaos. This should not be confused with the similarly named Chaos Theory of mathematics, after which this book was unscrupulously misnomered in the hope of selling more copies to people who don't read blurbs. As the nature of the theory is explained elsewhere in this book, there is no need to do so here as well. What is not included elsewhere, however, is the professor's famous Complete Chaos Formula.
42Λ V([purple] + 2)
Here 42 = the number 42; Λ = the Cosmological Constant; V = the Cosmological Variable; [purple] represents the colour purple; and 2 represents the number 7. When asked about the use of a colour in his equation, Rupert explained that purple is the only hue that doesn't appear in the light spectrum* as it is, in fact, a mixture of violet and red, which are at opposite sides of the rainbow band. When further asked if he was then referring to its wave length values, he replied, with annoyance, "If it could be represented by a simple number, I would have done that. This is why we use Greek symbols in math, people, because otherwise things get lost in translation. Purple means purple. Once you understand that, the rest of the equation pretty much explains itself. ὅπερ ἔδει δεῖξαι"
* This is not to say that it doesn't appear in nature, but simply not in the actual divided spectrum of white light. Obviously it does, unless you're colour blind, in which case it does not.
Appendix E: Alternate Ending
"But wait, what if he didn't die?" – St. Paul
Note: If you have a pair of scissors handy and some glue, feel free to cut the following paragraph out and stick it before the words "The End" in the last chapter, should you prefer it. If you're reading this on an e-reader, you'll need something stronger than scissors.
Sadly, the obliteration of all existence included not simply the present, but the past as well. This meant that none of this actually happened. The nature of Chaos, after all, is, was, and will be to transcend not simply space, but time itself. An egregious error meant that this fact remained unforeseen even by Dr. Rupert MacGuffin himself. That oversight and everything that happened subsequently was the result of his failure to carry the '3'. Not that any of this mattered, of course, as it wouldn't have happened anyway.
The author decided to omit this as simply too depressing. More importantly, it would have the effect of rendering the book you hold in your hands a mere work of fiction.
The End
"We read to know we are not alone."
– C.S. Lewis
Chaos Theory: A Feel Good Story About the End of the World Page 28