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Ethel and Hari

by William A. La Fleur © 2004

“No. That can’t be right.” Professor John Seulav scanned the nearly impossible array of numbers and symbols on the sixty inch plasma screen he used as a computer monitor.

“Ethel? But that can’t be possible.” He muttered as he ran his fingers over the computation. “My own sister-in-law?”

He ran his fingers through his dirty mop of hair and flopped against the wall, nearly knocking down one of his three Noble prizes.

“It all fits. There is no doubt about it, and I can turn it away.” He glanced at the end of the equation, down at his watch and then ran out of the room.

He drove across town and found her in the very store he expected her to be. By the exact rack, holding the exact blouse he expected.

“Ethel.” He said breathlessly.

“John? What are you doing here?”

“Don’t buy that dress.”

“What, why?”

“You must trust me. You can’t buy that dress.”

“‘Can’t?’ What do you mean by that? I can buy this dress if I feel like it.”

“No, I mean you shouldn’t.”

“And why shouldn’t I?”

“Ethel, have you ever heard of psychohistory, Hari Seldon, the Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Azimov?”

“John, have you been drinking again?”

“Listen to me. There is a thing called psychohistory. It is a system that uses statistical analysis of social trends to predict future social changes.”

“Sociology? Statistics? That’s what you do isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s what I do. Well, a number of years ago a science fiction writer named Azimov came up with this system, and everyone thought it was just fiction. I figured out how it works. I just needed a large enough sample size and now the human population is finally sufficient for the math to work.”

“What are you going on about? Is this something you are working on at that school of yours?”

“Ethel. I can predict future trends, but there are points were a single individual decision can change everything.”

“You can predict the future?”

“Yes, but statistics don’t work on individuals. I can predict what the key point will be and when it will be, but I can’t predict what the decision will be.”

“But how can one person’s decision make a difference, and what does that have to do with my blouse?”

“It’s like the butterfly in Brazil flapping its wings and affecting the weather in New York.”

“Now, John that’s just plain silly. Butterflies can’t change the weather and besides I don’t know what butterflies have to do with statistics or my blouse.”

He ran his fingers into his hair and pulled. “Look, just don’t buy that blouse, okay.”

She shook her head at him, but still held the blouse. “John, I don’t have time for this. I like this blouse and I am going to buy it unless you can give me one good reason not to.”

“If you buy that blouse it will set in motion a series of events that will bring down our entire civilization and plunge us into a dark age of oppression and depravity that we will not be able to rise out of for centuries.”

“One good reason John.”

He gritted his teeth. “It makes you look fat okay! That blouse really makes your butt look big, enormous.”

Her jaw dropped. “John.” She fought for breath. “John, how dare you?”

He glanced around at all the other blouses and shirts on the racks. He grabbed one at random.

“Here. Buy this one instead. This one makes you look really hot. This makes your ass look great. Buy this one.”

Her eyes narrowed and her lips tightened. “That one is twice my size and I’m an autumn. That’s a spring. If I wore that it would make me look like throw-up.”

She hung up the blouse she had been holding. “You know you have just spoiled my desire to shop. I hope you’re happy. I am going to have a word with your brother.”

She leaned forward and got right in his face. “I won’t forget this and I won’t let Wil forget either.”

She stormed out of the store.

John breathed out the breath he had been holding and leaned up against the shirt rack.

Back on his computer screen one of the decimals in his computation spread its wings and flew off, leaving the opposite answer to his equation to be true.

x x x




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