Fundamental Problems

By Michael J. Tobias

A small collection of stories about judgment, vengeance, inspiration, inter-connectedness, and devotion. With each tale, the reader is challenged to consider new ideas or perspectives. There are twists, surprises, lovable and detestable characters, epiphanies, and revelations that will stay with the reader long after the reading is done.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael J. Tobias
• Release date: Jul 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301200337

Michael J. Tobias

Michael J. Tobias was born and raised in South Carolina. After receiving degrees from Furman University and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, he served several Baptist and Methodist churches in various positions, including Youth Minister, Education Minister, Associate Pastor, and Pastor. He has also worked at schools, in retail, at a funeral home and at a public library. His interests include spirituality, world religions, philosophy, quantum mechanics, psychology, biology, and ecology. He plays guitar, uses Xubuntu Linux, is a vegetarian, practices Tai Chi, takes care of a cat named Buddha, and faithfully mows his mother's lawn. He also reads quite a lot and writes on occasion.

Book preview

Fundamental Problems

A Handful of Fables

By Michael J. Tobias

Smashwords Edition

Text copyright © 2013 Michael J. Tobias

All rights reserved

Contents

Acknowledgements

Fundamental Problems

Literary Snob

The Muse

Gradual Epiphany

The Crossing

The Minstrel's Tale

About The Author

Acknowledgements

The following people provided valuable feedback along with generous encouragement: Molly West, Mary Beth Tiblier, Deb Corbin, Jennifer Langford, John G. Hartley, Jeane Walker.

Fundamental Problems

Ralic Hanwuir loved his job. He loved the fact that he got to see places that otherwise he'd never see. He loved his supervisor, Safid Spallinor, because he had learned so much from him and Supervisor Safid Spallinor treated him like a son. He loved to travel, and while there were often downtimes, he frequently spent large portions of those downtimes thinking about how he could be doing a multitude of other jobs and why he was grateful that he wasn't. But most of all, he loved his job because he truly and whole-heartedly believed he was doing the work of the Creator.

What is our last assignment? Supervisor Safid Spallinor asked.

Ralic waved at the screen and words and numbers appeared. He flicked his wrist to the left and new words and numbers appeared on the screen. After several more flicks, Ralic said, The only inhabited planet in the Peridak galaxy.

Is that in the Lepisate region? Supervisor Safid Spallinor asked.

Yes sir, said Ralic.

Supervisor Safid Spallinor waved his fingers in the air above his console in a series of specific gestures and then said, Prepare for hyper jump.

Ralic frowned and gave his head little shakes because his supervisor always said this, though the idea of preparing for hyper jump was antiquated. Ralic had never had to prepare for hyper jump, though he was years younger than Supervisor Safid Spallinor, so perhaps it was an old habit, formed in the days when their interstellar craft were far shakier traveling through wormholes. Odd, though, since they were encouraged to drop old, particularly useless habits.

In a matter of moments, they emerged near the target planet and assumed orbit. Ralic had prepared the standard communique and as they circled the watery orb, he broadcast the message in several languages on several channels. The message was concise and explicit:

Greetings, citizens, we are from the planet Extronalon 5 in the galaxy Harputlia, located some 800 trillion light years from here. We are representatives of the Interstellar Federation of Planets and we have been tracking your progress. You are about to enter the stage of interstellar travel and we have some grave concerns. Unfortunately, your knowledge has apparently outpaced your psychological and spiritual evolution and we cannot allow you to progress further. You have access to the Creator's rules, but you clearly do not follow them. We therefore have no choice but to allow you one rotation of your planet before exterminating you. We regret that this is the case, and we can only assure you that this is the best course of action for the future of life in this universe. You will have that period of time to make one final defense of your existence. Unless we find your intention particularly compelling, you will be exterminated. Please consider this carefully, as we will not accept any responses other than this plea. A small, self-propelled probe containing several communications options has been sent to the office of the President of the United States of America for the specific purpose of stating your case. Any attempts to attack us will automatically render this offer null and void and will be met with the immediate annihilation of your planet. Your grace period of one solar day begins in one solar hour. Make peace with your gods.

In the interim, Ralic asked, So what are the numbers for this planet?

Supervisor Safid Spallinor flicked his wrist a few times and then recited, CPE (Current Population Estimate) 8.1 billion. ECP (Estimated Compliance Percentage) less than one percent.

Ralic whistled. "That is pathetic. Age?"

Two-hundred thousand of their solar years.

Conversion?

Two-hundred, seventy-two turjeons.

The turjeon was the oft-debated universal measurement of time, while the ECP represented the estimated percentage of the population who actually complied with the rules of the Creator. The age Ralic asked about referred to the age of the current stage of evolved bipeds on the planet known as homo sapiens sapiens.

Well, they seem quite young, Ralic commented, But that's still no excuse for that pitiful ECP. Then after a moment of thought, he asked, How long have they been aware of the rules?

Globally, approximately two-hundred of their solar years, Supervisor Safid Spallinor replied.

Hmmm...that is less than half a turjeon, Ralic pointed out.

Immaterial, responded Supervisor Safid Spallinor. One-tenth of a turjeon is plenty of time to assure a majority compliance percentage. Less than one percent is unacceptable.

Meanwhile, on earth, panic had set in; riots raged, crime and destruction ran amok, fires burned out of control. Nearly every government had set about attempts to control the mayhem with military intervention, which, unfortunately only seemed to make matters worse, which meant more violent and bloody. The President had called an emergency meeting of the G8 leaders and they were currently debating what to include in their response. What they were actually doing was a more civilized form of what was going on in the world at large. Ideas were thrown back and forth, with criticisms following like contrails. Much shouting and irrationality could be heard to emanate from within the small conference room in the White House.

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, especially when they pointed out that the proverbial doomsday clock was ticking in a decidedly unproverbial, disturbingly literal fashion. While the bulk of the argument regarded precisely what to say, few had considered how to say it, until an enterprising advisor to the President mentioned teleconferencing.

None of the options they provided can be used for teleconferencing, the President indicated.

That's true, agreed his advisor, But you can return the flash drive with a URL link on it. The URL link can be to a site on our intranet that we use for internal teleconferencing. That way, you can have a dialogue with them.

"That is brilliant, said the President, Son, if we don't get completely destroyed, you're going places in this government." The young man beamed, and then scrambled out of the office to assemble a tech team to set it up.

The aliens were surprised at the ingenuity of the response, and clearly unprepared to deal with it. At least Ralic was. He lunged into full panic mode when the prospect of actually speaking with one of the inhabitants of the planet arose.

Calm yourself, Supervisor Safid Spallinor said. I'll speak with them.

In his entire time as a UAI (Universal Anti-Idolatry) agent, Ralic had never laid eyes on any of the inhabitants of any of the targets of extermination, much less spoken to one. The mere thought of it nearly caused him to fall into a jittery conniption. Exterminating entire