Thursday, December 18, 2014

Stranger Things

     Archie Locke thought it might be a good time to consider the epistemological implications behind Aristotle's claim for preconceived knowledge just before he walked right into a large wooden door.
     "Oh no! I'm so sorry! Are you okay?" said the startled woman as she closed the door of unit 37B of Dreamwood Terrace.
     "I'm fine, I'm fine," said Archie. Even though he'd probably done something medically discouraged to his nose, it was true; even getting hit in the face with a large object couldn't stop him from thinking. It was only when he glanced down at his watch and noticed that he needed to be at the City Community College auditorium in 5 minutes that he decided to hold his thoughts for later. He threw a farewell smile at the woman still staring worriedly at him, hastily picked up his skateboard, and began sprinting down the hall.
     Each floor of the Dreamwood Terrace apartment building was laid out remarkably similar to a Cartesian coordinate grid, so one only required the volume of each unit in order to calculate the length from any given front door to the front entrance of the building. It typically took Archie around 3 minutes and 34 seconds to dash from his apartment (31A) to the front entrance. He'd figured this out approximately 3 years ago when he was 14, and he'd been using this knowledge ever since to calculate roughly how late he was going to be to literally every event he'd decided to attend. He was always late. It was just his way.
     Soon after he busted through the front entrance Archie threw his skateboard down on the street and hopped on, being careful to avoid the large pothole just outside. That thing seemed to never cease its growing.  The sun tucked itself behind a cloud of fog near the horizon, making the city vastly darker than it should have been. It was a damp, foggy evening in mid December, and the entire city was looking dreary.
     It wasn't long before Archie's wooden plank of a skateboard was going so fast down Shellac Avenue that he was getting speed wobbles. Against his better judgement, he checked his watch to see how late he was to the auditorium. The streetlights passing overhead cast an awful glare that made it impossible to read the watch's display. Archie could barely make out the number 7 before he noticed the glare get darker. And darker. When he could finally read the 7:00 on the watch face, he looked up to see streetlight after streetlight cutting out behind him. The dark of night was on his tail, determined to make this ride a real difficult one. As soon as it enveloped him the speed wobbles took over and he tumble-dried over and over on the pavement. When he got up he noticed that all the storefronts were completely black. The entire city seemed to be out.
     At least he didn't have a mother at home worrying about him. He decided to try walking.
   

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