Solve the World Part One

By Dante Stack

Seventeen year old Jennifer Dash leaves her Louisiana home in search of the key to life. Her quest begins humbly enough amidst the swamps of the Pelican state, but forces beyond her control will propel her past many nations, oceans, cultures, and fairy tales... to the very limits of reason and myth itself.

Written as a spiritual and philosophical answer to the tv show Lost, Dante has attempted to sculpt an epic to beat all epics. In Part One of Solve the World, you'll be slowly submerged into a stew of philosophy, religion, theme parks and relentless adventure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stockade Amusement
• Release date: Oct 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463355947

Dante Stack

Dante is a desperate believer.He has education in religion as well as cinema arts from Biola University. He's lived with his wife in Slovenia, Russia, and America. Sometimes he makes outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. No, wait, scratch that. That was Dr. Evil's father who made that outrageous claim. Not Dante. Mr. Stack would never say that. He's much too humble.Life is best lived with a dog and a wife.

Book preview

Solve the World Part One

by Dante Stack

Published by Stockade Amusement at Smashwords

Copyright 2018 Stockade Amusement

Thank you for downloading this book! This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment and edification. The book may not be re-sold nor given away to other parties. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. Enjoy!

Table of Contents

Chapter One: Meet Jennifer Dash

Chapter Two: Leviathan

Chapter Three: Hitchhiking

Chapter Four: Infinite Jest and Other Topics

Chapter Five: The Sunset Limited

Chapter Six: Remember, Remember

Chapter Seven: Under LA

Chapter Eight: Magical Kingdom

Chapter Nine: The Mechanical Giraffe

Chapter Ten: Illusion

Chapter Eleven: The Seducers

Chapter Twelve: Rewind

Chapter Thirteen: Heaven Above

Chapter Fourteen: Hell Below

Chapter Fifteen: Guideline #1

Interlude: Father Daniel

Chapter Sixteen: Bad Blood

Chapter Seventeen: Lillith

Interlude: Consequences

Chapter Eighteen: Letter to Atticus

Preface

What you are about to begin is an epic. It's an epic because it features the conquest of the impossible—of myths and legends, of microbiology and minotaurs, from the depths of evil, to the heights of possibility.

Starting now, and for the next 100 chapters, we'll follow a young woman as she traverses her own intuition towards the deepest mysteries of life. Why are we here? What are we supposed to do? How's it all going to end?

Have patience, dear reader. What begins with a whimper won't end that way. This is not a story about a quiet life of desperation. No. This is Homer's Odyssey. Dante's Divine Comedy. Jennifer Dash's quest.

Welcome, and brace yourself. It's a bumpy ride.

Chapter One: Meet Jennifer Dash

Let me present to you Jennifer Dash. 17 years of age, 5'9", dirty brown hair falling straight to the small of the back. Undeniably pretty, but the type of pretty that doesn't stand out in a crowd. In one moment she could easily pass for a tall 14-year-old, and in the next pull off the college-grad look. You would like her immediately if you met her. And you should. Jennifer Dash is a wonderful human being, full of youthful exuberance, naive charisma, childish glee, and a curiosity that could rival Nikola Tesla’s. Today she's wearing an orange shirt and cut-offs with seventeen dollars wadded up in her back pocket. And, as is her style, she sports knee-high socks with matching colored Skechers. But I get ahead of myself... I really do hope you like her. You're stuck with her now. You're stuck with her for quite awhile.

This is how it goes.

Awoken by a sound, perhaps a distant thunder, Jenn became aware that she didn't understand life. She got up, grabbed her favorite old, moldy, black backpack, and pushed open the front screen door, letting it slam on her rear on the way out.

I’m sorry, let’s pause right there—I want everything to go well here. The beginning of an adventure, it’s gotta hook you. It’s gotta get you involved. How is that best communicated? What could possibly draw you into a massive journey led by a young girl none of us yet know? It’s a daunting task.

Focus. Focus on Jenn. She’s the valuable one here. She’s worth the risk, worth the hours and hours and years spent with her. She’s the girl for you. And she knew, even then, walking out that door, that this understanding of life is not the same as figuring out one's own purpose in life, or the cliché phrase finding myself. None of that business. Jenn somehow understood the fallacy of searching for her very own special purpose or destiny or whatever you want to call it. To do so would be to center all human history around herself—and that, friends, seemed quite far-fetched to our young protagonist. That’s part of what makes Jenn interesting, what makes her unique and precious in our eyes—for a teenager to see beyond herself like that, in this modern age of distraction, who does that?

So, again, I'll repeat just to reorient ourselves—Jenn pushed upon that screen door, uncaring as it slammed on her rear on the way out.

Off. Off to solve the world. Somehow….

As Jenn walked those first few steps past her door, she began to reason that she needed some sort of system of organization. She would acquire data—lots and lots of data. Surely one needed facts and figures in order to categorize and therefore digest the world as a whole. But how on Earth was she to organize all that stuff the world had to offer?

Whilst submerged in the throes of contemplation, Jenn reached the neighbor's mailbox. She stopped, stared at it. Then with a modicum of hesitation, she opened the box, taking the mail along with her. And so she walked... away from her past, away from her home turf, away from that screen door with someone else’s mail in hand.

But what am I walking toward? Jenn pondered. There was no sidewalk on this street, so she instinctively followed the dotted line in the middle of the road. Perhaps if she had seen the movie, Jenn would have blurted out, Follow the yellow brick road, but alas, she was blithely unaware of that story, so she continued along the dotted line free of any analogous musical melody.

What Jenn did think at that moment, as she perused her recently acquired stolen mail, was this….

Okay. So, a system... how to devise a system? Perhaps the mail has some insight for me. Mail. Mail? How did I come to know this as mail? Somewhere in time someone taught me about the postal service, therefore, I assumed the papery items found in certain flagged boxes were delivered by men from various far-off lands. And I called this mail.

I see it now. Oh! It's so clear! Up until this moment, up until this dotted line, I've built my life upon stolen information. I trusted that this mail service was real, based on the word of others.

Why should I accept that information?

There's a starting point. No belief without direct experience—okay, okay, okay, okay! But I shouldn't become a doubter of others. I don't want to be a skeptic. I don't want to become that. So... I'll believe the experiences of others... but not their second-hand knowledge. That's a starting point, that's something to build from. A base. Only accept experience as data or the first-hand experience of others whom I choose to trust. If I am to believe that this paper in my hands is mail, then I must meet someone who delivers the mail and can vouch for the mail system. Or, as a second option of intake, I myself must become a mail-person in order to fully embrace the very idea of mail.

But for now, I haven't met a mailman that I trust. So logically, then, I can't accept this mail as mail! Wonderful, Jenn! You're getting it, old girl! I shall call these papers in my hand that I picked out of the box with a metal flag on it Humphaliandra!

At that thought, Jenn suddenly held out the mail with both her hands and announced to anyone in earshot, Hello, Humphaliandra! Pleasure to meet you! Pleasure to hold you in my hands just so!

But wait, I can call this humphaliandra all I want, but that doesn't negate my memory. I still know this as mail, I've just given it a new name. But it's still mail. I can't simply erase what I've learned.

It came to her then in a flash. In one word.

Myth.

Jenn realized then that of course she couldn't undo seventeen-odd years of life education. She couldn't un-mail the mail. But what she could do is recategorize it. Mail became, in an instant, along with all the other lessons Jenn had learned previous to this moment, a myth. There was data, and there was myth. Data was humphaliandra, myth was mail. That's just how it was.

Jenn thought. Okay, old girl, everything you've been taught is myth. Everything you've learned from experience is data useful to solve the world. I don't need to write it down. These are commandments to be memorized. This is important. This is vital. When I want to talk about the process of sending and receiving papers of information using the postal service, I refer to these things as the myth of mail. It remains myth because I have no way, at this time, to be sure that this system of delivery works as I have been told. Therefore, myth. When I simply want to refer to the papers that have appeared inside metal boxes with flags, I refer to humphaliandria, which of course, being observed from my own experience is not myth but solid-as-a-rock data.

As Jenn now strolled down the center of the street, she sighed, pleased with herself that after merely traveling a few paces down the road, she'd already grown so wise, and made such dramatic inroads to solving the world. Not knowing where to take her mind next, she drew her attention away from her newfound commandments to the humphaliandria in her hands.

A bill. From a credit card company. Due payment of $174.71. Addressed to Redjeb Heller. Redjeb. What a funny name.

Address: 300 Room St, Jennings, Louisiana 70546.

Also included in the loot was a Macy's catalogue. Flipping through, the Halloween section caught her eye. Page 67 had a little boy in an astronaut costume. On his left chest his blue jumpsuit showed off a big ol' NASA insignia stitched in.

NASA.

Jenn thought. NASA. When was I first told that men had walked on the moon? I can't remember. It seems like a fact of life. Every American child learns their ABCs, their 123s and that Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and that other guy went to the moon in 1969, officially showing the Russians that Capitalism is awesomer than Communism.

A note here: the third Astronaut on the Apollo 11 mission to the moon was Michael Collins, though he never walked on the moon.

Jenn continued in her logic. That sure showed them! Look at how Humpty-Dumpty's walls fell down! Ha!… but why should I believe that story? How could I count this as data, as something I know to be true? Maybe the Russians tell their people that they got there first. Maybe they call it Soviet Moon. Or Moon Union. For that matter, how do I know that Russia exists? I've never been there. Have I met anyone who's been there? Aww, kibbles ‘n bits, it's too hard to remember the past. New commandment I declare: only people we meet from this moment on count in this hunt to solve the world. Let the past lie down and sleep awhile. Who cares for it, anyway? It can't help me now.

So, there is a myth of man going to the moon and a myth of Russians and Russia. Just like, as I see now on pages 70 and 71, there is a myth of vampires and a myth of zombies. I should treat all these ideas as equal. All these things are myth... and I need to prove them one way or the other in order to treat them as data.

The third envelope contained a handwritten letter. It read:

Hi Red!

How are you? I am okay. You haven't come over lately, have you? Why is that? Is it me? Are you ignoring me, or just the world in general?

Yesterday they voted off Tony. I KNOW! Crazy! These are treacherous times we live in, old man! You just can't trust people to make right decisions anymore. Isn't that right? See? You're rubbing off on me even when you're not around; this pessimism thing. It's kinda cute, actually.

I miss you. Is it the Communists? Has your paranoia grown? You can be honest with me about that stuff, you know that, right? I'm trustworthy. And reliable. Well, perhaps not so reliable... but... nevertheless, I'm trustworthy with secrets and stuff. Even if the Reds (note the plural rather than the honorable singular form of the word) were to bang down my door and torture me for forty-seven hours straight with voodoo and Chinese water torture, I'd still never give those scumbags your inner, deep thoughts. Besides, even if I wanted to tell someone something, who would I tell? I'm not well connec...

Jennifer Dash turned her gaze mid-sentence from the paper in hand to a bird whistling in a nearby pine tree. Her mind was on the Russians.

She thought. Commies are on everyone's mind, I guess... even the Macy's catalogue. Why else would they have those big, bad NASA emblems on the outer space outfits? I'll tell you why, old girl: they wanted the whole world to know that they're selling good ol' fashioned Capitalist American Astro-nautic gear, rather than Cosmonaut corduroys.

Cosmonauts and Astronauts. Funny words. Two more myths to ponder.

I'm hungry.

Jenn stopped walking. Two simultaneous thoughts vied for control of will. She was dreadfully hungry, and she was well aware that not eating led to bad, bad paths of dark, dark doom. Jenn certainly didn't want bad, dark doom. She wanted light, bright, and free. It stood to reason then that her body required sustenance. Nevertheless, she had a mission at hand, to solve the world... and the world wasn't just about to solve itself. And at this particular moment she found herself entering into the first deep debate her adventure would lead her on. As she continues down the road, to nearly endless physical wonders, this mental quandary will continue to rear its ugly head. We shall ask this question now, knowing that Jenn won't come to a peaceful conclusion today. Many of Jenn's upcoming perils will be from physical attacks and strange occurrences. This mental moment, however, provides a subtle uncertainty that will continue to lie as a harangue for Jennifer and perhaps for you.

The question is this: can the written word, now read, be included as data, or myth? The Halloween costume of the young Astronaut brought this question to stunning reality for Jenn. Does the picture of the boy validate the existence of that costume? Can she trust that picture? What tools does she have to reach a consensus within herself? This small question instantly multiplied and divided itself into thousands of individual quagmires. Jenn pictured vast walls full of books. Books full of stories of days gone by, experiments tried. Battles fought. Knowledge won. Can they be trusted? Any of them? Are vast libraries a help or hindrance to acquiring pure knowledge?

Jennifer Dash was overwhelmed.

She took a big breath and recited allowed what she knew.

I know I'm holding humphaliandria, also known to me as the myth of mail. I have learned about many myths in my past life. I accept none of them as truth as of yet. They are neither true nor false. They are merely ideas, yet to be realized to me. I see a picture of a boy in a space-suit. I do not know whether to believe that he exists or not. I have seventeen dollars in my back pocket. And I am hungry. I will try to feed myself now using the seventeen dollars as a bartering tool, as the myth of money teaches me. I am hungry, and I will be fed.

Jennifer took another big breath, smiled, and started walking again. She saw a fast food shop in the distance. She would test the myth of money next.

Content with her new system, she named the question of books Flagritorindor.

Flagritorindor.

Jennifer Dash liked to name things. Perhaps she would dispel the question of Flagritorindor one way or the other by venturing to Macy's in search of the costume. Then, she would hunt down a supposed mailman, and solve the myth of mail. But first, she would quiet her stomach.

Food ahead.

~~~

Continue with me. Continue with us. Continue with Jenn Dash as she builds off her humble beginnings and uses all her capacities to make sense out of this planet.

Next chapter, Jenn gets more than she bargained for when she exchanges her back pocket money for fast food... and what she hears just may, just might, lead her forward in her self-proclaimed destiny to solve the world.

Chapter Two: Leviathan

Meet Rabbi Itamar Levi. 47, with two daughters, ages 10 and 7. Their names are not pertinent, and we need not bother ourselves with learning them. Rabbi Levi, however, shall play for us the role of soothsayer. He is the first of many voices that will influence Jennifer Dash on her quest, and this, her first encounter with him, though she won't yet learn his name, will not be her last.

And so we return to Jennifer Dash at a fast food joint. She buys a salad with chicken and ranch dressing.

Would you like to purchase a Magical Kingdom Unicorn Collectible Fun Bottle? the cashier asks. It comes with a complimentary twisty straw! Jenn hesitates. She doesn't need anything like that. She doubts it will help her accomplish her goals. Perhaps noticing her hedging, the cashier adds, You know the really great thing is the Magical Kingdom Unicorn Collectible Fun Bottle can be brought to any of our 16,000 nationwide locations for a free soda refill until November 1st. That's when Magical Kingdom opens their newest attraction, during the Veneration Celebration. This, obviously, tips the deal in Jen's favor. She'll need soda refills in the coming days and weeks, that's for sure.

The total for the meal and Magical Kingdom bottle comes to $13.82 after taxes. Jenn pulls out all seventeen dollars from her back pocket, slaps it on the counter, and tells the cashier to keep the change.

Jenn sits. Facing her a row away is Itamar Levi with his two girls. While Jenn chows down, the 7-year-old stares at her. Why does the little girl stare at her so? The girl promptly responds to Jenn's questioning thought. Daddy, are unicorns real?

Jenn sucks at her unicorny twisty straw with short, rapid sucks, suddenly invested in Rabbi Levi's answer. How does one answer that question? Like every other piece of isolated knowledge, Jenn supposes she must treat unicorns just like the Cosmonauts and vampires on page 70 of the Macy's catalog. They were the stuff of myth until proven otherwise—part of the Flagritorindor mythos. Nevertheless, she yearned to hear insider information. Maybe this man (whom, again, we know as Itamar Levi but Jenn does not) knows some deep secrets.

Jenn was not to be disappointed.

Ceremoniously, and with great charade, the rabbi wolfs down his food and responds.

"Are unicorns real? Are unicorns real!? Well, of course they are! How else would we know about them? The real question is: