Category: Literature

Categories
Literature

Tell the Machine Goodnight

Tell the Machine Goodnight by Katie Williams is about a device that gives accurate recommendations to obtain happiness. The device, called Apricity, creates some unusual scenarios.

Although Apricity does what it is marketed to do, it is not a complete solution. First, users must follow these recommendations. Apricity is a black box, so users are not able to understand why these recommendations are made. Following recommendations is a leap of faith. The average user needs to apply the recommendations and sense within themselves any changes.

Yet, many people question the premise of Apricity, its benefits. Some believe that taking advice from a machine is a fool’s errand. Others believe change is not possible in themselves.

Apricity is also expensive. The Apricity Corporation has a monopoly: The procedure is expensive, but the procedure itself is not costly.

In our current society, we are faced with many pieces of advice that promote happiness, yet they are not followed, for example:

  • Do not use your phone in bed.
  • Smile (as in smiling makes you happy)
  • Eat well
  • Exercise

Williams gives an interesting example of this phenomenon. A manager of the Apricity Corporation has taken his Apricity reading multiple times. It is always the same and he never follows the advice. He rejects advice because as a self-identified self-made man, the act of rejection makes him feel powerful. Thus, for him, power is a stronger reason than happiness.

Categories
Literature

The Memory Police

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa is about people living under a dictatorship called the Memory Police whose goal is to rid the world of unnecessary things.

The Memory Police are able to reach into people’s hearts and take away memories of objects. These objects are then destroyed and the people do not care because those objects do not have meaning. These events are called disappearances.

Each disappearance is a total shift in society. If a person’s livelihood is disappeared, they have something left that remains useful to society.

The Memory Police do not face strong resistance as their disappearances begin with specialized professions and luxury objects.

At the time of a disappearance is a sense of loss generally, but also a natural acceptance as if the changes in society are normal or habitual.

Categories
Literature

Decoded, Mai Jia: Allegories of Genius

One of the chief difficulties of writing a book about mathematical genius is that the average person views mathematics as calculation or opaque. (Aside: calculation has lost its luster since the advent of the pocket calculator.) After a certain point, in Decoded there is no longer any detail about mathematics. The reason is probably that it is classified, but also that the writer could not probably do it justice or if he tried he would just confuse his audience, although some of us would like to understand the cryptography referenced. Maybe his approach here is the reproduction of a conversational technique that people dealing with difficult matters adopt: he is reporting only what his interviewees can report to him, a non-expert.

A lot of wild cardinal rules are made about cryptography that seem ridiculous on the face. For example, that a person is either a decoder or encoder. Or that once a person makes a cipher he is used up as a cipher is characteristic and must be unique. All of this is fascinating. The idea behind this might be that the nature of a task, not merely the native abilities of the practitioner, is what determines the result. Once one door is open another is shut.

Perhaps, making statements of impossibility is mostly a literary device in order to make the character of Rong Jinzhen, a practitioner of two worlds, unbelievable or one-of-a-kind.

There are many such allegories in the book and other devices used to indicate his genius. Here is his evolution of problem solving at different stages of life:

  • Spelunking into a cave without proper light
  • Performing tasks in darkness
  • Constructing a dark room yet not finding ones way out

Danger, traps. But due to his daring, he is recognized as a genius.

Categories
Short Story

SQL & the Wolf

SQL was out and about when he encountered a wolf.

“Hello,” the wolf said, “I am lost. Can you help me?”

A lesser squirrel would have run away.

“SQL the Squirrel at your service.”

“Dinner service.”

“Sir, please don’t eat me.”

“Why not?”

“If you eat me, I cannot tell you the way to go.”

“But I do not know where I am going. My instincts led me here and they will lead me somewhere else. They are my compass. I do not need direction.”

“But what about the big picture?”
“Big picture? What is a picture?”

“Um, the vast wilderness”

“What about it?”

“After I am gone, you will to go searching again and again. Compare that to me. I know where the trees are that bear fruit & nuts. Would it not be better if you had a place to stay?”

“Like where?”

SQL removed from his waist the smart watch that he used to track his steps. Laying the watch on the ground, he began to manipulate the screen with his tiny hands.

“You see this dot? This is where we are. According to this map there is a place called Duck Pond 30km from here.”

“That’s pretty impressive Squirrel. What else can you do?”

“I can read the news.”

“What’s that?”

“I can tell what is happening in the human world. For example, let’s look up Duck Pond.”

Although he did not have his phone, SQL was fortunate that this part of the forest was part of the mesh network he had setup with the other animals that expressed an interest in the internet.

“Duck Pond. A migratory site for birds. No road access. Large mallard populations year round.”

SQL & the wolf, whose name was Wesley, set out in the direction of the pond. They came to a stream that according to the map was a tributary that led to the pond.

“Just go down this stream and in a few hours you will reach the pond. Goodbye.”

Wesley looked uncertain. Before SQL left, he said a few things, like about how he would mark this spot with an X so that Wesley could visit again. Or, that the animals of the forest, could really use a guy like him, fast, able to travel far distances. This was new territory for Wesley, trusting someone. But he was curious what the squirrel meant.

Categories
Short Story

Mech-Cat Frisby Post-Notes

What are the qualities that give Mech-Cats a soul? Also, what is programmed vs. nurtured?

  1. The mech-cat is a real object. It is not drawing on an unlimited amount of data. It cannot perform an unlimited amount of operations. The brain is finite and so is the system of the mech-cat.
  2. Even so this makes the mech-cat more like an animal or human than a computer. It would be uncanny if a robot could remember every single thing it has ever experienced and recall it instantaneously. What the mech-cat must do is have a high quality source of information from its senses that overwhelms the memory systems so it is forced to extrapolate & synthesize from the data. For example, if you look at some scene and then look away so it is partially in your view, you are taking in a new scene but parts of the old scene are there. Is it the same scene in your mind? Or is it slightly different in your vision? Another example say there is a system that you have studied well and you are asked to reproduce it. While producing it you are not merely copying the old system but doing something else, understanding its operation, entertaining new ideas, even if you were going through the motions of producing normally, for a human it would not turn out the same. If you are merely photocopying it then you get an exact replica but if there is thought put into it the product is different.
  3. What part of the vision system is programmed and which is nurtured? Part of the story is that the mech-cat is programmed to discern between living and non-living things. I think the reason for this is that a human is special. Maybe if their senses are good enough and their programming was good, they would learn without that. But unlike a baby, they are not exactly dependent on people. I believe that life learns what other life is through the early growing process, but since mech-cats are already complete they need this programmed in them.
  4. Another piece of programming is reflexes. I think this is important so even in the example where a robot hand & a human hand are moving, the mech-cat needs to dodge. There is a practical reason too because unlike a living animal it cannot repair it’s own damage. I think in my story anything like the cat being able to recreate its own solar cells or grow muscle is too sophisticated.
  5. This also relates to other programming with self-preservation like with pains. I think for a mechanical being especially for some reason unlike a living creature, it will take longer for them to attain a soul. This is a bit of a cheating concept because I’d say they do have souls yet unlike people it is tough to say whether they are purposeful which is a semi-necessary condition perhaps, but not a sufficient condition for a soul. It is just a recognition that it might take longer for anything to make sense to such a being.
  6. A lot should make sense in terms of its chemical instrumentation. I’m not sure it really understands chemistry, maybe it does, but in a sense this makes the mech-cat a whole lot like humans right off the bat. They are concerned about the same things. They are partners. Humans just like mech-cats want sunshine and clean air. Humans can taste something and understand it is not good because it is bitter. I think only later on would a mech-cat perhaps really understand the why or how of things. I’m sort of imagining a being that can run through some programming and maximize some quality in their environment, but since the environment is very complex and new with a human partner it must adapt its behaviors. Suppose there was a vat of clear liquid and the human was a chemist: he knocks over the liquid and it is a strong acid. It burns a hole in the ground. Perhaps the mech-cat could identify it using its chemical equipment or ask the human on the tablet or any other actions that would lead to an increase in safety. This would be also very important information that would stand out for this particular Mech-Cat.
  7. A big part I think in what makes a soul is the differentiation which cannot be programed exactly. It is differentiation through life which is a semi-random process opposed to say a random number generator in a personality module. A part of this is accomplished in the training center for mech-cats. The testing by humans is one part of this differentiation and the mech-cats themselves the other. What is alive about mech-cats is all the programming they’ve been given which is new to them and how they look and behave to each other. I once read a very interesting story about the many-worlds hypothesis. https://www.tor.com/2020/07/28/hugo-spotlight-ted-chiangs-anxiety-is-the-dizziness-of-freedom-transforms-the-familiar/ It was that there were parallel worlds and it was possible to interact with one of these parallel worlds and at that moment destroy the identical-ness between the worlds by this interaction. So by interacting with yourself to say tell him to take a job whereas in your world you don’t take the job, you can run experiments. But they turn out to be different people. I think reality would be similar for the mech-cats. I think it is beneficial for many mech-cats to be together for a time so that they understand there are differences between them and so that they might have a feeling of camaraderie or being part of a collective. I feel that if there is an AI or a robot of great sophistication like the mech-cat, you have to raise it like a child. The mech-cat has a job but it is still a pet so it shouldn’t have any responsibility. It can be given a certain amount of tasks which might be subroutines that human owners might really want like restrictions like not going into certain areas or scaring off mice, but its learning for these things is pretty minimal because unlike a human it is not expected to create his or her own environment or have to learn everything through language. This might be another useful piece of programming for the mech-cat to have, human language, but I don’t think it is necessary because for a lot of simple things in a household, an animal learns through positive and negative reinforcement, even simple commands. I don’t really know how intelligent this animal is to be. I left the “electronic brain” aspects out because I simply couldn’t think of the right thing. Humans have plasticity, neuronal generation. This one facet is hard to capture with computers because although they take in data, they can easily throw out data and take in new data, whereas making a neuron seems like a much more interesting and indeterminate process. It is possible to simulate a neuron and the plastic part is I suppose a neural network because simulated neurons are very simple functions but in aggregate they can do complex things. The problem here is one of efficiency. A human is able to accomplish so much without using a ton of energy. I believe the mech-cat should have some of both: a silicon computer and something else that is more plastic. In popular sci-fi, AIs sometimes become super-intelligent and runaway from their creators by having computer hardware moved or adding more servers to their network with backups and greater CPU, so in this sense an AI is getting smarter or growing. What I imagine for the mech-cat is some kind of material that can become dense and more intricate on the interior from exertin an electrical signal or adding chemicals on the exterior, and so it is is limited by the cavity in the mech-cat. Maybe it is a different form of memory device; like a brain, it could be an object that strengthens repeated signals and weakens signals that come in less frequently. Since the mech-cat is able to do some chemistry, perhaps it could add to this, and build the structure like a crystal very slowly. Perhaps, also in the body of the mech-cat is a chemical bank that he could add to very slowly and that he could draw on.

Questions about the solar panels: In order to create a surface that is flexible out of cells, how do you accomplish this? How can you do it so it fits over what are like muscles that stretch and move in a large range of motion, even fold and turn over oneself like skin that is pulled?

Categories
Short Story

From A to Z on the Alphabet Archipelago

All the letters lived together on islands in the Alphabet Archipelago in the Symbol Sea. Certain groups of letters knew each other very well. A,B,C were close as were X,Y, and Z. The letters lived at different addresses. The island addressing system was binary. A was 1 so he lived at 00001, and B was 2 so he lived at 00010, and so on. The distance between islands was the smallest number of bits that had to be flipped. So for example, A and B were not next to each other but lived 2 spaces apart, C at 00011 was the neighbor between them. The 00000 island was reserved for space.

The letters actually did not travel often from their islands. Numbers travelled more quickly than letters so the letters had developed a standard of communication. Messages were of the form X:Y where X was a string of bits that were the addresses of islands and Z was a string of bits that was converted into a message. What about punctuation like the : in the message? It was taken from the Symbol Sea. Numbers made up the atmosphere and could be grabbed from the air.

One night M, was gazing across the Symbol Sea, quiet as an ellipsis, and the reflection of the Moon added to her thoughts. “What if there was an M just like me, an M-prime, but different across the sea looking at the Moon reflecting?” She sent a letter to her friend J.

J: DO YOU THINK THERE ARE LETTERS JUST LIKE US THAT LIVE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SEA? – M

M: I DON’T KNOW. LET ME ASK Z. – J

Some time later Z responded.

J,M: IF YOU TURN AROUND THAT IS THE WHOLE WORLD. – Z

M: Z TOLD ME THAT YOU THINK THAT THE WORLD IS REFLECTED BECAUSE YOU ARE M. – J

This annoyed M. Though by this point as Z pontificated to R about his thoughts, and R told his view to his friends, all the other letters had begun to discuss the matter. E was partial to M’s view whereas S was partial to Z’s.

E and S started to collaborate, and with the help of a few other letters they invented a ship. One day they showed up on M’s shore. They had made the voyage okay, E traveling to S, and then together to M. Over those several days, the sea was calm full of periods and commas and no roiling exclamations. M wanted to travel across the sea and look for her reflection. In order to settle the matter, E and S agreed on the voyage and that M could borrow their ship, but first they explained the operation of the craft.

E began, “The ship has two methods of propulsion. It has an adder and a flipper.” The adder was a propeller attached to a windmill whereas the flipper was a set of fins that used currents of exclamation.

“The way the adder works is through binary addition. For example, if you are at space, 00000, you can use the adder to add 1, to get to 00001, A, and again to get to 00010, B, as the 1 adds to 1 giving the result that carries to the next spot.”

“The way the flipper works is that you can flip any bit at any position for example M, at your island, you can visit J, if you flip the bit in the 1s place, so we’ll travel from 01011 to 01010, not accounting wind.”

“Yes, the wind” said S with import.

S began, “Once we got out to Sea, we discovered that the wind blew our craft to and fro over the symbols. Through careful observation, we discovered that if you are at position 01010 or at J’s island, there is a 1/2 probability of getting blown over to T’s island 10100, and a 1/2 probability of going to E’s island 00101. Curiously, if you are at space 00000, the wind doesn’t seem to have any effect.”

“What happens if you are at A, 00001, and the wind blows you over to the right or over to the left?” asked M.

“That’s a very interesting question,” said S “What happens is that the location truncates so you end up at space, so 00001 becomes 00000. If you are blown to the left, a 0 is tacked onto the end, so 00001 becomes 00010. So what the wind does, is that it shifts the entire binary location to the left or right, each with a probability of 1/2, with truncation occurring to digits that go beyond the first bit. As the atmosphere is made of numbers there is a constant inequality, < or >. This difference is the source of the wind.”

“Every day you can use either the adder or flipper,” said E.

“And every day the wind blows,” said S.

M accompanied E and S back to their homes, and then she propelled her way forward, first flipping her way to the different islands of the Alphabet Archipelago, sometimes a lucky shift sending her to her destination and other times closer to space.

M reasoned that since the letters lived in a 5-bit system, her reflection would live within 10-bits. So if her address was 01011, then her reflection lived at 1101000000. In between lay the Symbol Sea.

After putting together her supplies and receiving a message from the letters wishing her good luck, she started out.

M's Log
Each day there is a head or tail wind and an operation.
headwind or tailwind
f11 flip 11th bit
a add 1
00000 Start M' 10110|01101 M 00000 Finish
0 01101
1 00111 a,T
2 0100000011 f10,T
3 101000000110 f11,H
4 1011000001100 f9,H
5 001100000110 f13,T
6 0110000010 f2,T
7 1011000001 f11,T
8 0101100001 a,T
9 10110000 f1,T Almost
10 101110000 f4,H
11 10110000 f5,T
12 1101100000 f10,H
13 1011000000 f10,H

After 9 days of travel she saw land, but the wind swept her away, and on the 13th day, after circling her destination, she made it to 1101000000 where she made landfall. There lived on the island, the letter, m. M was so happy to meet m! M and m were quick friends. As M explained herself, m made mango lassi, and m told M about all the letters that lived around, and M told m about her friends. Although between their two descriptions, they had some trouble following each other. It was as if you learned the story of a long lost twin, and saw in his or her life similarities to your own, but all the same a difference. m produced some letters.

“These are from a game of chess that I am playing with p.”

m: 1. e4

m showed M the board so that she understood. M exclaimed, “That’s very peculiar. We write that as P-K4.” After comparing the systems of notation, m understood.

Just then, a letter came. m opened it.

m: i just saw a vessel coming in your direction, what is it? – z

“Take a look at this,” m passed the letter to M. M read the letter, it looked mostly the same, though letters were connected in places they were not, more curvy, smaller and connected. She understood its meaning. m wrote z. Together M and m visited other lowercase letters.

Eventually M went back home. When she arrived, she told all the uppercase letters of her travels and showed them this new way of writing the letters. It was a great discovery and work began on creating new vessels and means of communication. It was agreed between the upper and lower case letters that an extra bit would be used to distinguish between upper and lower case letters. Until this point, both letter systems were using the same way of encoding messages, on each set of islands 00001 were both A and a. So for the lower case letters, their islands did not correspond with their writing. In the new system, 00001 was A and 100001 was a, 00010, B, and 100010, b, and so on. Though mostly, communication stayed the same. Between all the letters the meaning was clear and bonds of friendship were formed from a to Z and z to A.

ThE eNd

Categories
Short Story

Mech-cat Frisby

I. Frisby woke up in the light cool sun. A bird was chirping in the distance. Frisby got up licked his paws and started walking around the house. First he checked the south window. The shrubs had deposited more leaves. A gentle wind blew across the leaves. The sun shown through and made a shadow.

It was morning. There was a lot of work to do. Coffee was started. In the living room, Frisby was laying on top of the sofa gazing out the window. His hexagonal skin reflected the sun. Motes of dust played around his still form.

II. The mountain stands eternal. I just had to get away from the hustle and bustle. I travelled off the mountain path and found beyond an alcove a rock jutting that I could stand on. I took a picture of me standing on it. I examined the alcove. Near the floor was some moss and inside the rocks were darker in color and smooth to the touch.

III. I’ve come to the same spot. But this time accompanying me is Frisby. Frisby hasn’t aged a day since I got him nearly 20 years ago! What an astounding piece of technology. He will follow my every step and when I’m not looking he will be in front of me having taken a different path to satisfy his curiosity. I’ve taken the photo, the rocks are the same, and so is my cat. I’m the only one that has aged. I’d like to go further, off the beaten path, but I have my limitations.

IV. Each Mech-cat body allowed a degree of variation in function. Some came with larger battery packs or stronger legs & paws. Although unlike normal cats, they were perfectly symmetric. Any curving movement could be reproduced on the opposite side. The thinking was that if any system failed there would be an identical system on the opposite side ready to take up the function. The mech-cats had to endure any weather that a normal cat could endure and fend for themselves in the wild. Unlike normal cats, their skin was made up of a flexible array of solar panels.

All mech-cats were solar powered. They did not have fur or any need to eat. Under a microscope one could see their skin was actually a lattice of hexagons. Their skin was smooth like glass but you could grip it and feel the artificial muscle underneath that was warm to the touch. Due to the circulation of fluids that triggered the contractions within muscles, mech-cats had to maintain these circulatory networks by maintaining any even flow of fluids throughout the body. If you cut off the supply of fluids in this part of the mech-cat that existed only beneath the surface and not in the chassis or skeleton, it would cease to function, to move like a normal cat.

The designers felt each mech-cat should play with other mech-cats in order that they develop a personality and a way to test their overall abilities. Each cat was tested before sale and after it came off the assembly line.

During this phase mech-cats would play with other mech-cats, run around, and spend plenty of time at the sunny courtyard which was many times brighter than a normal courtyard due to reflecting panels, and was to the mech-cats a supercharging place and shared memory for nascent mech-cats.

Each mech-cat came with specific directions of how to function before they were ever turned on, not unlike how a kitten is programmed to feel for her mother. Mech-cats were designed to recognize humans. The technicians of the facility wore red uniforms and performed these recognizing tests. A common test was to take a cylindrical object and move it from side to side. A mech-cat should track the object if it is held by a human hand and to not track the object if it is held by a robotic arm.

Mech-cats differed from cats in behavior in that they did not groom themselves. It is recommended that you wipe down your mech-cat with a lint free rag and a light amount of water after outings. This is due to dust and deposits of minerals from water that accumulate on the surface of the mech-cat. Since mech-cats are solar powered this interferes with its performance. Mech-cats have a finely developed sense of smell for aerosols, paints, and other coatings because these materials if they cover the skin will lead to costly repairs. In its image recognition system, mech-cats can recognize spray paint & other paint cans and avoid them. It can tell the difference between an area where there has been a coating of paint that is still wet and the surrounding area. Besides, only using its sense of smell, it can pick up such differences. With its smell it can also tell the coming of a storm and detect any acids. In this way mech-cats like normal cats do not like water.

Moreover mech-cats in their mouths have sensors for radiation, radon & other nuclear material, natural gas, carbon monoxide, and other chemicals, noxious and potentially corrosive substances. Part of the reason is to protect the owner from harm. If there is a fire, the mech-cat will alert the owner. In cases of emergency, its normally colored eyes turn different colors; red in the case of fire or into bright flash lights if visibility is low in the smoke, and other colors or blinking patterns in case of other threats. All mech-cats come with three accessories, a lint free rag, a charging pad for cold & non-equatorial climates where the sun is not out for much of the year, and a tablet that it can communicate with and display various information like anything it finds & different maintenance information. It also shows its location and can be used to limit the boundaries of which they can travel & different rules about allowable movement, and different routines. For example, one routine is scaring off mice and another is to surveil and alert the home systems about intruders.

Mech-cats are stunningly beautiful creatures. They are like moving porcelain, their frame like both glass and muscle. Aside from a safe environment, access to the sun or charging pad, they do not need anything. Left to their own devices, they will categorize anything they find and do a simple chemical analysis to determine if it is harmless. They’ve been known to be quite finicky when it comes to dust and old objects, preferring more plastics, metals, & glass. When it is night, they’ll sometimes hop onto their owners lap as a heating source & also to bond what is probably the most interesting part of their lives. They feel a bit like a warm piece of molten glass, or a gel hot pack.

V. In case of death of an owner, the owner could plan that his mech-cat take certain actions. In Frisby’s case, he was free to go.

On his first day, he met some other mech-cats in the park. It was like meeting old classmates. Although all were owned except for him, he could play as hard as he wanted, it made for great pabulum or diversion, in what had been a fairly tame life with lots of stretching outside. They even licked his panels down. There was a sense to head north, following the sun during the summer and to return to the equator by walking along mountain ridges during the winter months, and vis-a-versa for southern hemisphere mech-cats.

In remembrance, Frisbee found the spot again and spent the day up there, sleeping in the alcove at night. He bounded off the rocks. He would stay in the mountains where the air was clean and sun was bright, and eventually rejoin his brethren in their pursuit of light and play.

Categories
Short Story

Illiterate Squirrels

Two squirrels are walking along a path when they see a sign: “BEWARE WOLF 谨防狼”.

“What does that say?”

“I don’t know.”

They continue on and there is another sign, “🐝🧥🐺”

“What’s this?”

“It has some pictures.”

“I see some animals but no squirrels.”

“And that thing in the middle I think that’s a coat, something humans wear!”

“Come on.”

They continue and come upon a speaker. There is a button. The squirrels press the button.

“Watch out for the wolf up ahead,” the speaker says. But meanwhile there is a bee buzzing around and a man putting on a coat. A doll of a wolf lies by the side of the road.

“You hear what that said?”

“No, I was distracted.”

They continue on and they find another sign. It has a comic on it. The 1st panel is the squirrels encountering a sign “BEWARE WOLF 谨防狼” 2nd and 3rd panel and so on.

“This is kind of interesting.”

“Very strange.”

“What does it all mean?”

They shrug & go on.

As they walk along the path, there is a wolf hanging by the curb. They cross him. Zoom into wolf: smh.

Categories
Short Story

The Frog that Came Back to Life

Petrified by a spell, over many centuries the spell wore off. What was thought to be a fixture carved by an artist on the pylon of a bridge began to disintegrate, and beneath it a 17th century frog came to life.

“What wazzat” it thought to itself. The last thing it remembered was a burst of red. It was night and the moon was out and in the reflection of the pond below he saw his family. How did he get on top of this bridge you may ask? On the far side a collection of stones on a high outcropping rose to the level of the other pylon near a tree. As part of his exercise, he would risk jumping up here despite predators.

Meanwhile approximately 10 minutes earlier a witch was walking home in a huff. She had just been stood up for a date. Before she crossed the bridge, she paused to collect her thoughts but instead she had a date with a frog which she didn’t really like. With an evil smirk, she cast a petrify spell on this harmless frog. Not thinking of the repercussions of this she only thought of herself, she vowed she would stay single and not pursue anyone until she felt differently, and left.

At first the monument was a sad reminder to the family. They believed that he had in walks done the wrong thing or crossed the wrong person. Then came anger. “Who was going to catch flies?” How was getting turned into a statue helpful at all? Overtime they forgot his personality and believed him to be a vain frog, that only cared about prestige. Like a frog on a stone this frog became stone. The highest and most still of frogs. The one that got himself turned into stone. To passersby it was a curiosity. Most were pleasantly surprised or perplexed. Most assumed that the man who paid for the bridge without telling anyone had a pylon replaced.

Over the next 50 years, torrential rains pushed the frogs downstream and growing settlement encouraged more foot traffic. The descendants of the man, their estate in ruin, saw an opportunity as technically they owned the bridge as it made up part of their estate and the acreage of verdant land through which the river flowed that the descendants of the stone frog lived. They decided to charge a toll, but as the county had paid the better part of maintaining the bridge, they knew they couldn’t get away with a full toll. The idea was the brainchild of the grandson of the man who constructed the bridge, whom noticing the trend of cottage industries dotting the lands, hatched a plan. On weekends, they would block traffic to large vehicles and opening the upstream area for fishing. Additionally, the side with most traffic coming up became a campground. At first, merchants were upset, but the older ones understood the money was for repairs and instead of selling that family had to do something. When a merchant came, he would ring a bell, and the second youngest child would unlatch the gate and take a toll. They also had a few regulars that would fish on the weekend. Overtime, they built a small store where they sold preserved foods & sometimes the catch of the day. Often you could see an eagle or two perched on the bridge or even the frog begging for food. With the number of homesteads expanding, they had a few customers, making the whole endeavor worthwhile. Generally it was peaceful on the weekends and many fish were caught. It had even gained a bit of a reputation from city folk as a place worth staying for the weekend as a place to get some fresh air and gather ones thoughts, as there was now a cabin built not too far off, and one could take a half-a-days walk to the destination, and stock up as needed passing the sage frog on the way to the store.

Remembering the past, and how much had changed, the grandson now in his old-age, how he had pitched the idea and slowly built rapport with the many passersby that could have easily overtaken him, the ideas of the store and noticing the desire for the countryside in the books he had read in the city, he built his entire life around this bridge, under which he used to put his feet in the water as a boy. He did not know the story about the frog. That was a family story he wondered about, but during these times as a boy, there was no time for reminiscences, instead he remembered a great deal of arguing and grief. A large portion of shipping stock was lost. The sea captain was a rationalist with a fair temper, a hire of the family, after the ship was lost a detective was hired to determine anything about what might have happened. Apparently the night before the voyage, he was at a bar boasting about a new nautical timepiece. He had presented it at the bar and the following conversation occurred between him and a woman of mystical aspect:

“By calculating temperature, humidity, keeping abreast of the latest meteorological data, and with this timepiece I can chart any path across the ocean depths. You are in safe hands. I am looking for some seaman that will man the ropes and take on other responsibilities as needed under my command. You will take a share.” Several of the patrons stood up to approach the captain when a woman with flowing hair spoke, “The sea has an energy & spirit of its own. Like a tempest her moods shift and living creatures around her heed this shift as we embody similar power with the ocean. Heed my warning captain, do not depart, or at the very least take me and I will assist you on your travels. I’m looking for safe passage.”

“What signs do you see?”

“The turtles emerging from the sea are fewer in number. And those hatched are fewer.”

“I don’t take you for a scientist to know the exact number of turtle hatched. You would need a proper survey & statistics. Additionally the reproductive cycle does happen every several years as you note. Although it might be earlier or later this year.”

“Later.”

“That might be so. But I’m looking for practical help like two guys that can rig a mast. What do you say?” Between the captain & the men, their mind was already on adventure, the chance to explore new lands, trade & meet new people.

“No. You don’t understand. You shouldn’t trust that instrument over a fellow human being. I know the sea. Understand it. I suspect also that that timepiece might not function properly.”

“You understand time too? I paid gold for this. If you want passage, you can pay like anyone else.”

Placing a single finger on the instrument she departed. “No thanks. Good luck.”

“Don’t worry about her. A difference in opinion. She won’t cast a curse upon us. Ha! Let me buy you two a drink. What’s your experience…” And the night proceeded normally afterwards based on different reports. A week later a high choppy wind and great bouts of rain pounded the shore. The nights were significantly colder and rain did not let up in the countryside for several weeks which was how it was like if remembered. These were the remnants of the storm that toppled the ship, the timepiece crashing into wooden panels. Several hundred kilometers south, taken by a current, some bolts of cloth washed up and were found by some young girls and worn as scarves, a nice memory borne out of tragedy.

That same cloth had gone to moths. Another 100 years past. The automobile had been invented. There was no longer a toll, but a small town bordering the old estate, where a well-to-do family lived, and the forest. Locally, the bridge had attained some historical significance. Over the past century several pieces of work, books, art, music could be traced to the idyllic setting which was provided. In the horror short story, “Apparition of the Manor,” in which a seaman after a long voyage returns to his old town, crosses the frog bridge when he sees a large house that was not there before. He finds lodgings with the place in mind, as he goes to bed. The next day he sets out to find an old flame. He finds the townspeople changed distrustful and skeptical of his travels comparing his claims to the record of the old man that lives in the manor, whom they speak admirably of. No one thinks it strange that such an old looking manor is here in 10 years. He goes up to the old manor to investigate when he sees his old girlfriend on the crest. They meet and she is warm unlike all the other people. She is so excited to talk but first he has to meet her husband. She takes him up the hill, a low voice, “Honey,” “Yes, dear,” it is not a man but a large frog man. The seaman is so revolted he nearly gags. Later on, we find out the frog is a collector of sorts, he has a nice car, “I’m a land creature. We go for wonderful trips. Leaps & bounds.” When he relates her stories, her reactions are not what he hopes. He’s filled with grief. By looking around, he determines that the frog is an inter-dimensional being, a traveler, and this world was tagged, for collection, colonization. He takes his oyster knife and goes in the back to look for spawn but he is confronted by the frogman and stabbed in the back by his old love, who feels no love for him. “What a pity. Well, it will make a good story, for the kids.”

In the present, the frog jumped down the rock steps and no tree. The ground was black and what looked like stars shown brightly to the surface. His skin reacted to the new air and surroundings and his eyes dilated. “Water” he thought. Under the bridge he slept and woke the next day.

“What had happened to the world?” He could not imagine how these humans in wood carts had become so advanced. Although he felt certain it had nothing to do with the magic that trapped him. Having some acquaintance with this he knew this was another power more closely related to the sun & earth than the mystery of bio-stasis being trapped in the amber of time.

He set off downstream into the forest wary of eagles. What he didn’t realize was the eagle was no longer the top predator around. Eagles ate mainly fish. Due to all the fishing, the Eagle population had receded. The top predator was now snakes.

As he hopped off deeper into the forest, the townspeople assembled on the bridge. A sense of sadness and anger was present. “Someone took the frog.” “Whoever took the frog is going to pay.” The mayor announced, “There will be a criminal investigation. It was one of the beloved landmarks of our town. If anyone has any information please come forward.” A boy spoke up, “As strange as this might sound, I was here last night walking back from the park, when I saw the stone around it crumble, and a perfectly green frog reveal itself.” People traded looks. “I know what you are thinking but I’m serious. It turned around and hoped off those rocks over there like it had done it a thousand times as a form of exercise.”

A young woman spoke up, “There hasn’t been a green frog here since the 17th century. Hi. I’m a naturalist.” “When was it carved again?” “Sometime in the 17th century. The person who carved it is unknown but it is speculated that it was the person who lived in the estate here originally.” People began to smile. “You know maybe it was a petrified frog. They say there used to be witches in these parts.” “The craftsmanship was very high. And it was strange how it was only on one pylon.” “Why do you think the witch turned it to stone though?” “Maybe she was corresponding with some handsome guy and it turned out to be a frog.” The people laughed and dispersed preferring greatly the fantasy as the young naturalist headed downstream.

It was getting dark. He didn’t know what he was looking for, his family, or another frog. He hadn’t seen any frogs. He had seen a skeleton holding a knife. “Hey, who are you?” “I’m from yonder stream.” “Yonder? Never heard that one before.” She was a gray frog elegant and blending in nicely with the stones underbrush. She started, “Never seen a green frog like you before. It makes sense that you are not familiar with this area and that you come from upstream. There is a legend in my family that the frogs upstream are very fancy. Are you a fancy frog? I’m a gray frog as you can see, well mostly anyway.” As he was processing this, her eyes grew wide, “Watch out!” she said. A snake was slithering up behind him, when suddenly, the naturalist deftly picked up the snake by the neck and released it further away. “Well well well,” she picked up the frog. “The magical green frog.” She inspected the body. “Our frogs here used to be green as they would blend in with the foliage from above but as they moved further downstream they began to shed their green and stay gray in this woody & rocky area. Functionally, they are the same species.”

“I’m going to take a quick DNA sample.” She retrieved a vial and implement. “Ow.” “That’s it. And a picture. Okay all done.” She lay her by the other frog and left. Both relieved they began to hop along.

“Let me show you our place. It’s a pond that diverges from the stream. I’ll show you how to survive out here.”

“How come you were by the stream?”

“Just for exercise. If you cover yourself in slime the snakes won’t eat you.”

Somehow he thought they were related that she was his distant ancestor and that she was smarter than him. “I should have made myself look more like a stone.” “What?” and with that he began his story and together they put the many pieces together.