It surprises me…no, that’s wrong—it disappoints me—that I, up to this point (which really is quite far for me to go without even mentioning its great sacredness), have not mentioned the nature of the butt cheek disk. I really did forget—I wasn’t holding out, trust me. That being said, it will surprise you, or perhaps by this point you are beyond surprises and it will not, that this disk has divine characteristics of its own.
- The thing is, the more Berners-Lee examined it, the more he understood how important the disk could be to himself and to all mankind.
Now Tim Berners-Lee was no fool. Indeed, I do not wish to discredit him, because I believe him to have been a very brilliant man who he did not find the disk; rather the disk found him. He had the genius to commercialize and market the World Wide Web, and the disk’s powers were able to find him and lead him. And when Berners-Lee realized what he could do through the disk, he treated the disk with the reverence it deserved.
And what exactly did it deserve? What was its sacredness—its divine nature? I doubt there will ever be a being in this lifetime who is enlightened enough to explain its nature, much less how Tobit and the disk are connected. I guess it’s best to simply say that they are connected and that beyond that it’s a mystery. But I’m not a narrator who settles simply for simplicity.
There is this legend—this myth if you will—that once, when Tobit was eleven, he held the disk and for a brief moment saw the history of all mankind and his place in it. The legend says that at this moment, Tobit was given the opportunity to choose between two paths of a respectable nature. Down one path he would achieve great wealth and acquire many goods. People would come to him for guidance on all of their computer needs, and he would become the greatest programmer ever to live. He would create a universal language that would become the standard for all programmers that were and would come. Down the other path he would achieve less wealth and acquire fewer goods (though he would still be rich beyond all means). But this other path offered him something grander than any programming job, and that was great power and the ability to unite the world in global peace through an interface that would one day be the World Wide Web (it was called something else in the vision that sounded similar to WWW, but was not). And according to the legend, Tobit picked his fate right there, and everything after that moment was destined to happen. Not too long ago, I wrote an article about the legend and did a fair amount of research to ensure its historical accuracy. Only Tobit and the butt cheek disk know the truth of this meeting, but it is true that Berners-Lee was at a convention in Los Angeles this year, and it is very possible that he crossed paths with our hero at some point.
I believe the legend is most likely true and that there is a connection between the two that remains, perhaps forever, a mystery. As far as I can see, the butt cheek disk is the word and Tobit is the flesh. Without one, the other cannot exist, which is why I’m so certain that Berners-Lee keeps the disk hidden somewhere and has not destroyed it. There is fellowship on the Web because of the disk, and there is hope because of the message of Tobit—if that makes any sense at all.
Now don’t go off and try to reason that Tim Berners-Lee is a part of this in some way divine, because he’s not, and if you believe that he is, then you have been misled. Berners-Lee plays no part in the mythological union of our hero and the butt cheek disk. There is, however, one more involved in this amalgamation of gods. Of him almost nothing is known. He is the mysterious figure linking the gods, and he is the father of modern technology—the inspirer of all that led to the Web (i.e., spontaneous combustion, plutonium, and the personal computer). Together, the three made all of the goods on which we rely to survive. A great, one might even say famous, philosopher (whose name I forget) said of this last, linking god that he “inspires the creation of the things we believe we need. He does not will us to believe in him, rather he wills us to believe in the things he inspires. It is not his nature to gain followers to his name; rather it is his nature to damage the Christian faith that has misled us. He wants nothing of us, except that we believe in the commercial goods he has inspired. And through our professed faith in those goods, he will be able to command everything from us.” Make whatever you want of that quote. How, or even why, the gods do this—I don’t know.
All this must be a little intense for you, the reader. I apologize if you sit or lie or stand or whichever way you position yourself as you read this book—I’m sorry if you, in that “reading the book” position, are confused. It might be encouraging if I said I’m also confused about the divine nature/relationship of Tobit and the disk. If that’s encouraging to hear and you’d like to hear it again, then here goes—I’m confused.
Now I cannot very well leave the readers of a chapter in confusion—that would be improper and impolite and even uncalled for. So I’ll recall a story. I will assure you right up front that this story has nothing to do with Tobit, or this book, or really with anything of any importance. I only tell it because I don’t want to leave you confused. So below is my story—there, only so as not to end in confusion. I hope this makes sense and does not confuse you further. So here it goes…
I’m sure you’re familiar by now from at least one of your friends, perhaps even from your own experience, with this online romance business (and what a business it is) and a story of success or failure with the business. I will tell you my own online romance story. I promise it’s short and requires little involvement on your part and only some involvement on mine.
My experience, or shall I say, my encounter with the Web romance scene happened three years ago (almost to the date). I had dummied down my writing style and was narrating legal thrillers. Back in those days, there was a lot of money in that kind of narration (there is none in it now), but it was not a rewarding job, and typically I’d find myself bitter. An old editor friend of mine suggested that I consult a cyber pimp and get an online whore to blow away my worries. If any of you have ever consulted a cyber pimp, you’ll understand the trouble I had trying to find one I could thrust…I mean, trust. For those readers who have not consulted a cyber pimp, for now just trust my expert opinion. Well, eventually as I was about to give up the entire journey, I saw an ad at a cyber pimp website that read in flashing animated graphics, “If you’re a narrator looking for love in all the wrong places—click here.” And that’s what I did.
I’ll spare you all the details of the site’s contents and skip to the part where I found Web love. She was a young, highly attractive narrator of Web-published porno (the kind that’s skillful, crafted, and polished). After our first online date, we were madly in love and even did wild narration together under a starry sky Web page background. It was magical, and it still is. I can’t begin to explain what Web love is—it’s really like nothing else.
I suppose that I could try to explain Web love by merely stating that it’s loving someone based not on appearance or the physicality of the relationship, but rather on much deeper things. I was in love with the speed of her typing, and its accuracy on top of that. I was in love with her screen name, with the way she used blue fonts when she was happy and red when she was sad, with the way she expressed emotions with characters instead of words—I was in love with all of those things. And there came a point where a part of her online style became a part of mine—it was at this point that I knew it was true love.
I say all of this to end on a nice note, but I also say this to prove that Web romances can and do work. We were married online two years ago and still narrate together at least four times a week. And in case you’re wondering—I am not a fast narrator when I’m with my wife.
Yours truly,
The Narrator