Peas of Mind (512 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.42 on 21 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Flash Harry (View user info) at 2009-06-29 08:24:38 EDT
It was three hundred and one point fifteen degrees Kelvin beneath the tree in the park where I was sitting with Mary. I know this because my digital watch has a thermometer built into it, but this only measures in Celsius and Fahrenheit so I have to either add two hundred and seventy three point fifteen, or add four hundred and fifty nine point sixty seven then multiply by five ninths to convert the temperature to Kelvin. Because Celsius and Fahrenheit are stupid.
In the Kelvin scale, zero means exactly what it should - zero. Then you have one, then two, and then three, and so on. Zero Kelvin is very, very cold indeed. In fact, you cannot get colder than that. But if you measure temperature in degrees of Celsius, zero means the freezing point of water, which is very handy for everyday things, like ice cubes. But the problem is that you can get colder than this, and that is why there is minus one, and minus two, and minus three, and so on. And this is stupid, and the very idea of minus temperature hurts my head.
Whenever I see a temperature in Celsius or Fahrenheit, I use this Kelvin Temperature Conversion Formulae to work it out properly.
Celsius: [K] = [°C] + 273.15
Fahrenheit: [K] = ([°F] + 459.67) × (5/9)
I have memorised this formula and use it nearly every day when I watch the weather reports, which never ever tell you the correct temperature in Kelvin, so they are stupid.
I can reverse these formulae quite easily. So if Mary, for example, asked me how hot it was beneath our tree I would tell her that it was twenty eight degrees Celsius, because that is her favourite temperature scale, and not Kelvin. And usually I would think that someone who preferred Celsius to Kelvin is stupid, but Mary is not. She is just whimsical.
So, it was three hundred and one point fifteen degrees Kelvin beneath the tree in the park where I was sitting with Mary. We sat on a blanket so that my skin did not touch the grass and Mary had taken her shoes off but I hadn't. The tree was not very tall and I could have reached up and touched the leaves if I was standing up. I liked the shade that the tree gave us and I liked the fact that it was three hundred and one point fifteen degrees Kelvin and I especially liked being there with Mary. She was reading a magazine and I wasn't.
Three hundred and one point fifteen degrees Kelvin is very hot indeed. If I had been exposed to the sunlight in the park I would have been sunburnt very quickly. I do not like getting sunburnt. It makes my skin go dry and then peel, and I worry that if I pick too much of it off I will end up skinless. I also like to eat one biscuit in my bed before I go to sleep and biscuit crumbs in the sheets are the enemy of sunburnt skin.
It began to rain beneath the tree, and this seemed very strange but it was true. I used to watch a television program called Strange But True which was about aliens and the supernatural. But nobody really knows about aliens because we don't even send men to the moon anymore, never mind other planets or galaxies, probably because it would cost too much money or kill the astronauts. And nobody really knows about ghosts because people very rarely see them and even when they do there is always Some Other Explanation which means that there might not be any ghosts at all. But in this case, when it began to rain beneath the tree even though it was three hundred and one point fifteen degrees Kelvin in the park, there was a very plausible reason which didn't involve aliens or ghosts so while it was definitely Strange it was also True.
There was a light breeze drifting through the park, which was very nice as it kept us cooler than we would have been otherwise. And while it was a very hot day it had rained the night before, so there must have been tiny droplets of water left in the leaves of the tree that were being blown off and floating down to us very gently, so that we were not sure at first if we were imagining the rain. At least that's what Mary said. I lied and told her that I wasn't sure either, even though I was.
I looked upwards and could see little specks of water landing on my sunglasses. And then, slowly and nervously, I closed my eyes and said aloud:
It's as though someone dipped a knife into the sun and buttered the sky.
Mary glanced up quickly from her magazine and looked at me. I did not see her doing this because my eyes were still closed but I could hear her ear-rings jangling with the movement. I waited for three seconds and then said this:
This silver-barked tree rains on you and I.
Mary remained motionless. I only waited for two seconds more before I said this:
The blanket protects us from the ground which is gritty,
And I'm pleased to be with a girl that's so pretty.
And then I felt my cheeks getting very hot, and I had to lie down quickly and pretend that I was asleep so that Mary would not talk to me. She knows that I don't like people talking to me when I'm sleeping.
I counted to four hundred and twenty in my head, which is seven minutes, and then I 'woke up.' Whilst I had been 'asleep' I had heard Mary rustling about with her magazine and going into her handbag and opening a sandwich and biting into it three times. There was tuna mayonnaise on her sandwich. I could smell it.
Once I had 'woken up', Mary gave me my sandwich, which was also in her handbag, and which also had tuna mayonnaise on it. My sandwich was buttered. Mary's wasn't. That was the only difference. As I ate she smiled at me and pushed her sunglasses away from her face and wore them on her head. She sat cross-legged and her naked feet were close to me on the blanket. Her toenails were painted a very shade of red but the varnish was chipped.
And then she said, "I didn't know you liked poetry, Ferdinand." That's my name, by the way. Ferdinand Brown.
And I waited until I'd finished chewing and swallowed my mouthful of sandwich because it is Bad Manners to speak with your mouth full. Then I said, "I like the way some words rhyme with other ones. Do you like poetry too?"
And she said, "I adore poetry." I have used italics because she opened her mouth into a big smile and placed her hands on her chest when she said 'adore'.
And I thought for a moment and then said, "I like it when poetry happens by mistake, when you are talking and not trying to rhyme. But it doesn't happen all the time." And Mary laughed because I had Made a Joke.
And then I noticed that Mary had a small smudge of blue ink on the fingers of her right hand, and I saw that there was a pen lying next to her magazine. And then I saw that she had written down what I had said before I fell asleep. Her handwriting was very neat and swirly and I was jealous of it because my handwriting is not very nice to look at in the slightest.
"Why did you write that down?" I asked.
And she replied, "Because it was lovely and I enjoyed it very much, and if it's written down I can read it over and over again and never forget it. You should write down any poetry that you come up with."
And I thought about this for a moment and then I said, "Okay."
And Mary smiled and pulled her sunglasses back down and started reading her magazine again.
And that was when I first decided that I would become the Poet Laureate and Mary could be my Wife.
User Reviews
Submitted by cheerios (user info) at 2009-07-03 00:18:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by viciousness63 (user info) at 2009-07-02 03:58:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2009-06-29 12:18:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2009-06-29 09:58:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2009-06-29 14:18:55 BST (#)
Ranking: 2
This is autastic!
Submitted by Danger_Ranger (user info) at 2009-07-01 08:55:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
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Submitted by Danger_Ranger (user info) at 2009-07-01 08:55:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
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..................../``` /:::::::::::```~,.........YOU ARE SCOTTISH GET THE FUCK OUT
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...................|;| • • • / • \ • • • | ;/........................................., ---~`` • ` • • • • , /..
...................`-| • • • ¯ ¯ • • • •|`......................................./` • • • • • •_•,•-````'.....
......................\ • •`¯¯¯¯` •,,- |,..................................../ • • • • • • /_,,__,,.........
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Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2009-06-30 04:47:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by TuTs (user info) at 2009-06-30 04:15:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I almost stopped reading after the temperature stuff, luckily I realised that this guy is actually rain-main. That is why it was raining under the tree right? ;)
Submitted by RoadSong (user info) at 2009-06-29 23:46:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Interesting and odd enough to keep me reading.
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2009-06-29 23:35:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
About six hours after I read this, it suddenly dawned on me: given their differences, Ferdinand has about as much chance of marrying Mary as he does of becoming the Poet Laureate. But then I read it again and realized if it was up to her, he probably would become the Poet Laureate. So she probably will marry him.
Submitted by haikumikoo (user info) at 2009-06-29 13:44:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
This post bores me.
The kelvin part was cool though.
Submitted by simple_catalyst (user info) at 2009-06-29 13:37:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I was ok, until you stopped talking about the weather.
Submitted by Cakes (user info) at 2009-06-29 13:27:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was like reading The New Yorker fiction.
Submitted by rob_berg (user info) at 2009-06-29 12:33:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
DEF...DEFINITELY A GOOD POST.
THREE MINUTES TO WAPNER.
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2009-06-29 12:23:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Trying really hard. And failing generally. It comes off as twirly moustache naval gazing.
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2009-06-29 12:18:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2009-06-29 09:58:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2009-06-29 14:18:55 BST (#)
Ranking: 2
This is autastic!
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2009-06-29 11:06:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
didn't care for it
Submitted by HellRazer (user info) at 2009-06-29 10:53:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I like how you capatalize things.
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2009-06-29 09:58:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2009-06-29 14:18:55 BST (#)
Ranking: 2
This is autastic!
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2009-06-29 09:42:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Wonderful.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2009-06-29 09:18:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This is autastic!
Submitted by FALLEN (user info) at 2009-06-29 08:57:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Kelvin temp scale
Kelvin and Hobbes?
coincidence? I dont think so.
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2009-06-29 08:30:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I eat my peas with honey.
I've done so all my life.
They do taste kind of funny,
but it keeps them on the knife.