Green Tigers and Ham
arrogant_gamer recently posted the following anagram: A REM THING. I'm reasonably certain he did this specifically to vex me. Well I solved it, oh yes, but in the process I wound up with about a half-dozen alternate anagrams. It seemed like a shame to stop there... so I didn't. But by the end I had all these great anagrams just going to waste.
Thus, I arbitrarily set myself the following exercise: to find ways to cram in as many of these anagrams as I could into a seemingly coherent narrative.
"It's a REM Thing"
Some years ago, a GRIM THANE explained to me that it was possible to scientifically disprove the existence of time. This insight had come to him while on a hunting trip to the river Niger. By the banks of the river, he encountered the bishop Nim, a man of no MEAN GIRTH. Indeed, so powerful was this fellow's passion for delights of the gustatory persuasion, that upon discovering the ham that the Thane had strung up above a tiger pit, he immediately fell upon it, and consequently, into the pit. The tiger, which had previously scorned the ham, considered this a far more attractive proposition, and leapt down on top of him. And thus did the Thane come upon them: poor bishop Nim, sandwiched 'twixt TIGER 'N HAM. Mustering his HE-MAN GRIT, the Thane managed to prise tiger from bishop, though he enjoyed no such success prising bishop from ham.
Now Nim was not a man of charming appearance, and like many such men, he compensated for this by taking an inordinate amount of pride in the appearance he hadn't got. The pope had once commissioned a special balance to measure a person's humility using the Metric system, (by weighing how much an egotist swelled with pride and then working backwards), and had tested it upon his bishops. This device, which for every other bishop had measured in kilos, would for HIM TARE NG. So the reader will have no difficulty in imagining that, after his scuffle with the tiger, Nim was utterly aghast at the reflection which presented itself to him in the river. Indeed, so loosely did his MITRE HANG, that he at once unleashed a string of invectives against the fluvial image that were quite unbefitting of his station. And thus RAGETH NIM:
"A pox upon you, thou desultorily instanced watering hole, thou glorified puddle! Thou claimest to be the mirror of truth, but thou art a fiend of a thousand faces! For even as I speak thou fleest before me, and a new ripple of thine self repeats this insult to mine eyes! O river, thou art naught but a case of mistaken identity perpetuated to infinity; a MIRAGE^NTH! I could lash thee a thousand times and strike only innocence, though thine guilt be as plain as the hat upon my head! River, I shall look upon thee no more!"
The Thane pondered this as Nim stormed off through the underbrush. "Ah do believe", he drawled to nobody in particular, "that that fellah theah was bitten by some manner of HATIN' GERM. That, or someone gave him the formulah for RAGE MINT H. Still, what he said about the multiplicitous nature of Nature does lead a man to thinkin'. If a river bears no sin for sinnin' only with what it is in this instant, then we can be judged only by who we ah at a given point in time. In every moment, we go to Heaven or to Hell, and in every moment, we ah reborn into ourselves. And so, the amount of us that buhns for eternity is simply the collection of moments we spent desuhving it. But it occuhs to me that as ah've just been born, and will pass away momentarily, ah've no cause to puhcieve anythin' but this moment. And from this NIGER MATH I may conclude that if there is any such thing as "time", it is cuhtainly not something which I have any ehmpirical grounds to believe in."
And thus came the Thane to conclude that time, on purely scientific grounds, must be rejected. I put it to him that if this were so, then Science, on purely temporal grounds, must also be rejected. He pondered this deeply for some minutes, then declared simply, "Ah've had it up to heah with your absuhd Reductio philosophy!", and walked out of the room.
And then I woke up. NIGHTMARE or Revelation, I guess it was A REM THING.
Thus, I arbitrarily set myself the following exercise: to find ways to cram in as many of these anagrams as I could into a seemingly coherent narrative.
"It's a REM Thing"
Some years ago, a GRIM THANE explained to me that it was possible to scientifically disprove the existence of time. This insight had come to him while on a hunting trip to the river Niger. By the banks of the river, he encountered the bishop Nim, a man of no MEAN GIRTH. Indeed, so powerful was this fellow's passion for delights of the gustatory persuasion, that upon discovering the ham that the Thane had strung up above a tiger pit, he immediately fell upon it, and consequently, into the pit. The tiger, which had previously scorned the ham, considered this a far more attractive proposition, and leapt down on top of him. And thus did the Thane come upon them: poor bishop Nim, sandwiched 'twixt TIGER 'N HAM. Mustering his HE-MAN GRIT, the Thane managed to prise tiger from bishop, though he enjoyed no such success prising bishop from ham.
Now Nim was not a man of charming appearance, and like many such men, he compensated for this by taking an inordinate amount of pride in the appearance he hadn't got. The pope had once commissioned a special balance to measure a person's humility using the Metric system, (by weighing how much an egotist swelled with pride and then working backwards), and had tested it upon his bishops. This device, which for every other bishop had measured in kilos, would for HIM TARE NG. So the reader will have no difficulty in imagining that, after his scuffle with the tiger, Nim was utterly aghast at the reflection which presented itself to him in the river. Indeed, so loosely did his MITRE HANG, that he at once unleashed a string of invectives against the fluvial image that were quite unbefitting of his station. And thus RAGETH NIM:
"A pox upon you, thou desultorily instanced watering hole, thou glorified puddle! Thou claimest to be the mirror of truth, but thou art a fiend of a thousand faces! For even as I speak thou fleest before me, and a new ripple of thine self repeats this insult to mine eyes! O river, thou art naught but a case of mistaken identity perpetuated to infinity; a MIRAGE^NTH! I could lash thee a thousand times and strike only innocence, though thine guilt be as plain as the hat upon my head! River, I shall look upon thee no more!"
The Thane pondered this as Nim stormed off through the underbrush. "Ah do believe", he drawled to nobody in particular, "that that fellah theah was bitten by some manner of HATIN' GERM. That, or someone gave him the formulah for RAGE MINT H. Still, what he said about the multiplicitous nature of Nature does lead a man to thinkin'. If a river bears no sin for sinnin' only with what it is in this instant, then we can be judged only by who we ah at a given point in time. In every moment, we go to Heaven or to Hell, and in every moment, we ah reborn into ourselves. And so, the amount of us that buhns for eternity is simply the collection of moments we spent desuhving it. But it occuhs to me that as ah've just been born, and will pass away momentarily, ah've no cause to puhcieve anythin' but this moment. And from this NIGER MATH I may conclude that if there is any such thing as "time", it is cuhtainly not something which I have any ehmpirical grounds to believe in."
And thus came the Thane to conclude that time, on purely scientific grounds, must be rejected. I put it to him that if this were so, then Science, on purely temporal grounds, must also be rejected. He pondered this deeply for some minutes, then declared simply, "Ah've had it up to heah with your absuhd Reductio philosophy!", and walked out of the room.
And then I woke up. NIGHTMARE or Revelation, I guess it was A REM THING.