A Discovered Encylopedia

The executor opened the top of a stack of boxes in the basement containing index cards. The title "Encyclopedia of Permutations" was on each box. He started reading through the cards of the so-called 'Encylopedia'. Unlike a conventional encyclopedia with its places, persons and things the work was a tangled mass of misunderstandings, assumptions and slips. A few examples will suffice to get the flavor of the work:

39888.4 A child tells his parents with pride that he ate two whole slices of bread. The parents are embarrassed and apologize to their house guests, whose groceries were in a bag in the kitchen.

49942.1 An interpreter stumbles with a word, pointing at the object and saying: 'That's the, um, what is that word again...the..." the negotiator blurts out the word, then literally covers his mouth with his hand, having revealed a state secret.

334223.2 Mislaying an object, finding it again many years later and returning it to its owner.

At first the executor thought it the work of a madman. And indeed the old book collector had been known as a bit of a character in the neighborhood. But eventually he came to understand the author's intent. The old man had been trying to classify all the possible variations of human interaction by the way in which errors arose and were resolved. Here were thousands of carefully cross referenced actions, flaws of logic, social faux pas. Though oddly subjective in content, the concept itself was quite original. The executor tried to recall if any similar works had ever been undertaken. Shaking his head, he put the cards back in their places.

The last card in the box bore the inscription: "Stopped writing on February 12th". A receipt for an English translation of the Babylonian Talmud received the previous day, was stapled to the card.


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Copyright 2008