He was insane. Crazy, mad, a lunatic. There wasn't a single drop of sanity in him. He said his name was Dr. Emeritus Artur F. Onzi. But he also said he was The Great Merlin of Britain, King Tut and "one of life's little working ants".
I met him at a coffee shop, on the coffee shop district of the city of South Iforgot. Not that I forgot, that was really the name of the town : South Iforgot, 40 miles east of North Iforgot. No, I'm not making this up. Some links are just like this, totally insane. That's why he wasn't really out of place there, being also utterly mad.
It was a coffee shop managed by hipster artists, frequented by a strange mix of poets, painters, killers and mad scientists. Arthur, as I've decided to call him hence forth, being the most human sounding name he gave me, was a member of the last group. He was one white lab coat short of a movie mad scientist anyway.
I entered the coffee shop, looking for a coffee, ended up having a cup of tea, after the aspiring actress that took my order, told me that they were a tea house called "The Coffee Shop" for irony, since they didn't serve coffee. On my left was a killer, I'm sure. Not so much because he wore a whore's whole skull in his shoulder, more because he kept pointing at it and telling me, or any other person that happened to be in the vicinities what was that skull he had.
On my right was a man in dark shirt, dark pants and dark hat, and he looked happy, so happy indeed that I had to ask what was it that he was celebrating. I somewhat regretted asking that when he picked up his glass of poison (or vodka as he called it), came next to me, hand in my shoulder, and started speaking, rolling his words and going back and forth, in the good drunken tradition. What he said translated into "Maaaaaan, I'm happy, oh so happy, happy happy happy! Want to know why I'm happy? I'm happy because my wife cheated on me! Oh yes she did, God bless her! She cheated on me, on my bed, with my best friend! She did! Oh joy!"
I must have looked surprised because he looked at me, and did his best impression of someone sober when he said "I am a poet.". He then finished his drink and turned his back on me.
It was about that time that Arthur entered, looked around the room, and came straight to me : "You. You are not from here. You are like me, from another place!"
I was too surprised to reply, and even if I weren't he gave me no time to. He sit on my table, spilling my tea, and resume talking : "You see, I found the secret of quantum entanglement! I found it, and I found it alone! They say it's theirs, that I'm just one in a team, that I, The Great Lord Of Dimensions and Space and Time am but a part of the team! I! I the magnificent Mule of dimensions! I! Shame on them and good riddance to all of them I say! AHAHHAHAH! Let them catch me now, let the 'team'" - you could hear the quotes in team - "rebuild the machine now! Let them do it after I broke it! AH! You see, I am what made the world exist, for I am God! I've traveled everywhere and if somewhere I wanted to go wasn't there yet, I created it! Oh the fools! The damn fools! They think they know how! AH!"
"Pleased to meet you too" - was my answer.
"We must go. IT is almost here." - was his verbal answer. His physical one was to drag me out of the table, out of the coffee shop. Once there he started talking again: "How did you get here? Never mind that." - there was no pause between sentences - "You'll go with me. I have it hidden, hidden in plain sight, oh such a genius I am! Emeritus Doctor, they made me for my brilliance! Come come now! Fast! Just right there at the corner! I can smell IT!" - Whatever IT was, Arthur never explained, and he was afraid of it. I believe it was IT that made him this crazy.
"Quick, into the box! Trust me, I'm not mad!" - He almost lost me there, for if he was one thing it was crazy. He jumped into a cardboard box - "the first one was the size of my lab, the next one will fit in my wallet! AH! They said it was impossible you know? Come on, climb! Let's show them!" - inside the box there was a small switch, and as soon as I entered, pulled by the arm he had not let go off, he switched it on. It was a browser, a machine to travel between links. It appeared to have no steering, no way to indicate destiny, just a on-off switch.
The box landed in a really small island, complete with palm tree and a empty bottle. The rest of that day I spent there listening to Arthur. He had a theory that he tried to explain me, about Quantum Entanglement and inter-dimensional time travel and how that would create a new universe every time you jumped. It somehow evolved peach jam, Japanese heavy metal and a gypsy priest.
He talked a lot, and the things he said were either totally insane or just half-insane. One of his monologues I remember quite well, for I've been craving a roasted pork leg ever since I started following this links.
"Once " - he started - "I went to ancient Egypt. At the time it was but a giant desert, ruled by one semi-divine king. No not me... Kings had a strange tendency to wake up dead. Anyway, I'd been traveling for years, and I had a craving for some nice oven roasted pork. I had the spices, and I could easily find a pig, yet I had no oven. That's why I designed the pyramids, you know? To cook my pork leg. It took me eleven years to build and two entire days, but I had a nice tasty roasted pork leg by the end of it. The best one I ever had!"
The next day Arthur was gone when I woke up. All he left behind was a small note : "What I miss more is my cat. That sweet, evil cat."
