"Cure the methanol poisoning,
huh?" said Jack. "And keep me
healthy for a
long time? Hmmm. It doesn't
sound bad at that. And it has to
be a request
about a change to me? I can't
ask to be rich, right? Because
that's not
really a change to me?"
"Right," nodded Nate.
"Could I ask to be a genius and
permanently healthy?" Jack
asked, hopefully.
"That takes two requests, Jack."
"Yeah, I figured so," said Jack.
"But I could ask to be a genius?
I could
become the smartest scientist in
the world? Or the best athlete?"
"Well, I could make you very
smart," admitted Nate, "but
that wouldn't
necessarily make you the best
scientist in the world. Or, I could
make you
very athletic, but it wouldn't
necessarily make you the best
athlete either.
You've heard the saying that
99% of genius is hard work?
Well, there's some
truth to that. I can give you the
talent, but I can't make you
work hard. It
all depends on what you decide
to do with it."
"Hmmm," said Jack. "Ok, I think
I understand. And I get a third
request,
after this one?"
"Maybe," said Nate, "it depends
on what you decide then. There
are more
rules for the third request that I
can only tell you about after the
second
request. You know how it goes."
Nate looked like he'd shrug, if
he had
shoulders.
"Ok, well, since I'd rather not be
blind in a day or two, and
permanent
health doesn't sound bad, then
consider that my second
request. Officially.
Do I need to sign in blood or
something?"
"No," said Nate. "Just hold out
your hand. Or heel." Nate
grinned. "Or
whatever part you want me to
bite. I have to bite you again.
Like I said,
that's how it works - the poison,
you know," Nate said
apologetically.
Jack winced a little and felt his
shoulder, where the last bite
was. Hey, it
didn't hurt any more. Just like
Nate had said. That made Jack
feel better
about the biting business. But
still, standing still while a
fifteen foot
snake sunk it's fangs into you.
Jack stood up. Ignoring how
good it felt to
be able to stand again, and the
hunger starting to gnaw at his
stomach, Jack
tried to decide where he wanted
to get bitten. Despite knowing
that it
wouldn't hurt for long, Jack
knew that this wasn't going to
be easy.
"Hey, Jack," Nate suddenly said,
looking past Jack towards the
dunes behind
him, "is that someone else
coming up over there?"
Jack spun around and looked.
Who else could be out here in
the middle of
nowhere? And did they bring
food?
Wait a minute, there was
nobody over there. What was
Nate...
Jack let out a bellow as he felt
two fangs sink into his rear end,
through
his jeans...
Jack sat down carefully, favoring
his more tender buttock. "I
would have
decided, eventually, Nate. I was
just thinking about it. You didn't
have to
hoodwink me like that."
"I've been doing this a long
time, Jack," said Nate,
confidently. "You
humans have a hard time sitting
still and letting a snake bite you
-
especially one my size. And
besides, admit it - it's only been
a couple of
minutes and it already doesn't
hurt any more, does it? That's
because of the
health benefit with this one. I
told you that you'd heal quickly
now."
"Yeah, well, still," said Jack, "it's
the principle of the thing. And
nobody
likes being bitten in the butt!
Couldn't you have gotten my
calf or
something instead?"
"More meat in the typical
human butt," replied Nate. "And
less chance you
accidentally kick me or move at
the last second."
"Yeah, right. So, tell me all of
these wonderful secrets that I
now qualify
to hear," answered Jack.
"Ok," said Nate. "Do you want
to ask questions first, or do you
want me to
just start talking?"

In your current state, I give you
no more than about another 50
years.
Assuming you get out of this
desert, alive, that is." Nate
seemed vastly
amused at his own humor, and
continued his wide grin.
"As for the fourth question,"
Nate said, looking more serious
as far as Jack
could tell, as Jack was just now
working on his ability to read
talking-snake emotions from
snake facial features, "first you
have to agree
to make a second request and
become bound by the secrecy, or
I can't tell
you."
"Wait," joked Jack, "isn't this
where you say you could tell me,
but you'd
have to kill me?"
"I thought that was implied."
Nate continued to look serious.
"Ummm...yeah." Jack leaned
back a little as he remembered
again that he was
talking to a fifteen foot
poisonous reptile with a
reputation for having a
nasty temper. "So, what is this
'Bound by Secrecy' stuff, and
can you really
stop the effects of the
methanol?" Jack thought for a
second. "And, what do
you mean methanol, anyway? I
thought these days they use
ethanol in wiper
fluid, and just denature it?"
"They may, I don't really know,"
said Nate. "I haven't gotten out
in a
while. Maybe they do. All I know
is that I smell methanol on your
breath and
on that bottle in your pocket.
And the blue color of the liquid
when you
pulled it out to drink some let
me guess that it was wiper
fluid. I assume
that they still color wiper fluid
blue?"
"Yeah, they do," said Jack.
"I figured," replied Nate. "As for
being bound by secrecy - with
the
fulfillment of your next request,
you will be bound to say nothing
about me,
this place, or any of the
information I will tell you after
that, when you
decide to go back out to your
kind. You won't be allowed to
talk about me,
write about me, use sign
language, charades, or even act
in a way that will
lead someone to guess correctly
about me. You'll be bound to
secrecy. Of
course, I'll also ask you to
promise not to give me away,
and as I'm
guessing that you're a man of
your word, you'll never test the
binding
anyway, so you won't notice."
Nate said the last part with
utter confidence.
Jack, who had always prided
himself on being a man of his
word, felt a
little nervous at this. "Ummm,
hey, Nate, who are you? How did
you know
that? Are you, umm, omniscient,
or something?"
Well, Jack," said Nate sadly, "I
can't tell you that, unless you
make the
second request." Nate looked
away for a minute, then looked
back.
"Umm, well, ok," said Jack,
"what is this about a second
request? What can I
ask for? Are you allowed to tell
me that?"
"Sure!" said Nate, brightening.
"You're allowed to ask for
changes. Changes
to yourself. They're like wishes,
but they can only affect you.
Oh, and
before you ask, I can't give you
immortality. Or omniscience. Or
omnipresence, for that matter.
Though I might be able to make
you gaseous
and yet remain alive, and then
you could spread through the
atmosphere and
sort of be omnipresent. But
what good would that be - you
still wouldn't be
omniscient and thus still could
only focus on one thing at a
time. Not very
useful, at least in my opinion."
Nate stopped when he realized
that Jack was
staring at him.
"Well, anyway," continued Nate,
"I'd probably suggest giving you
permanent
good health. It would negate the
methanol now in your system,
you'd be
immune to most poisons and
diseases, and you'd tend to live
a very long
time, barring accident, of
course. And you'll even have a
tendency to
recover from accidents well. It
always seemed like a good
choice for a
request to me."

"But there are rules," the snake
continued. "The first request is
free. The
second requires an agreement of
secrecy. The third requires the
binding of
responsibility." The snake looks
at the man seriously.
"By the way," the snake says
suddenly, "my name is Nathan.
Old Nathan,
Samuel used to call me. He gave
me the name. Before that, most
of the Bound
used to just call me 'Snake'. But
that got old, and Samuel
wouldn't stand
for it. He said that anything
that could talk needed a name.
He was big into
names. You can call me Nate, if
you wish." Again, the snake
grinned. "Sorry
if I don't offer to shake, but I
think you can understand - my
shake sounds
somewhat threatening." The
snake give his rattle a little
shake.
"Umm, my name is Jack," said
the man, trying to absorb all of
this. "Jack
Samson.
"Can I ask you a question?" Jack
says suddenly. "What happened
to the
poison...umm, in your bite. Why
aren't I dying now? How did you
do that?
What do you mean by that's
how you work?"
"That's more than one
question," grins Nate. "But I'll
still try to answer
all of them. First, yes, you can
ask me a question." The snake's
grin gets
wider. "Second, the poison is in
you. It changed you. You now no
longer need
to drink. That's what you asked
for. Or, well, technically, you
asked to not
be thirsty any more - but 'any
more' is such a vague term. I
decided to make
it permanent - now, as long as
you live, you shouldn't need to
drink much at
all. Your body will conserve
water very efficiently. You
should be able to
get enough just from the food
you eat - much like a creature of
the desert.
You've been changed.
"For the third question," Nate
continues, "you are still dying.
Besides the
effects of that methanol in your
system, you're a man - and men
are mortal.

"Sorry about that, but I had to
bite you," says the snake.
"That's the way I
work. It all comes through the
bite. Think of it as natural
medicine."
"You bit me to help me? Why
aren't I thirsty any more? Did
you give me a
drink before you bit me? How
did I drink enough while
unconscious to not be
thirsty any more? I haven't had
a drink for over two days. Well,
except for
the windshield wiper fluid... hold
it, how in the world does a
snake talk?
Are you real? Are you some sort
of Disney animation?"
"No," says the snake, "I'm real.
As real as you or anyone is,
anyway. I
didn't give you a drink. I bit
you. That's how it works - it's
what I do. I
bite. I don't have hands to give
you a drink, even if I had water
just
sitting around here."
The man sat stunned for a
minute. Here he was, sitting in
the middle of the
desert on some strange stone
that should be hot but wasn't,
talking to a
snake that could talk back and
had just bitten him. And he felt
better. Not
great - he was still starving and
exhausted, but much better - he
was no
longer thirsty. He had started to
sweat again, but only slightly.
He felt
hot, in this sun, but it was
starting to get lower in the sky,
and the cool
stone beneath him was a relief
he could notice now that he was
no longer
dying of thirst.
"I might suggest that we take
care of that methanol you now
have in your
system with the next request,"
continued the snake. "I can
guess why you
drank it, but I'm not sure how
much you drank, or how much
methanol was left
in the wiper fluid. That stuff is
nasty. It'll make you go blind in
a day or
two, if you drank enough of it."
"Ummm, n-next request?" said
the man. He put his hand back
on his hurting
shoulder and backed away from
the snake a little.
"That's the way it works. If you
like, that is," explained the
snake. "You
get three requests. Call them
wishes, if you wish." The snake
grinned at his
own joke, and the man drew
back a little further from the
show of fangs.

He gets the lid off of the bottle,
manages to get the bottle to his
lips,
and pours some of the fluid into
his mouth. He sloshes it around,
and then
swallows it. He coughs a little.
His throat feels better. Maybe
he can talk
now.
He tries again. Ignoring the
snake, he turns to look around
him, hoping to
spot the owner of this place, and
croaks out, "Hello? Is there
anyone here?"
He hears, from his side,
"Greetings. What is it that you
want?"
He turns his head, back towards
the snake. That's where the
sound had seemed
to come from. The only thing he
can think of is that there must
be a
speaker, hidden under the
snake, or maybe built into that
post. He decides
to try asking for help.
"Please," he croaks again,
suddenly feeling dizzy, "I'd love
to not be
thirsty any more. I've been a
long time without water. Can
you help me?"
Looking in the direction of the
snake, hoping to see where the
voice was
coming from this time, he is
shocked to see the snake rear
back, open its
mouth, and speak. He hears it
say, as the dizziness overtakes
him and he
falls forward, face first on the
stone, "Very well. Coming up."
A piercing pain shoots through
his shoulder. Suddenly he is
awake. He sits
up and grabs his shoulder,
wincing at the throbbing pain.
He's momentarily
disoriented as he looks around,
and then he remembers - the
crawl across the
sand, the dark area of stone,
the snake. He sees the snake,
still wrapped
around the tilted white post, still
looking at him.
He reaches up and feels his
shoulder, where it hurts. It feels
slightly wet.
He pulls his fingers away and
looks at them - blood. He feels
his shoulder
again - his shirt has what feels
like two holes in it - two
puncture holes -
they match up with the two
aching spots of pain on his
shoulder. He had been
bitten. By the snake.
"It'll feel better in a minute."
He looks up - it's the snake
talking. He
hadn't dreamed it. Suddenly he
notices - he's not dizzy any
more. And more
importantly, he's not thirsty any
more - at all!
"Have I died? Is this the
afterlife? Why are you biting me
in the
afterlife?"

Well, at least dying of a bite
from this monster should be
quicker than
dying of thirst. He'll face his
end like a man. He struggles to
sit up a
little straighter. The snake
keeps watching him. He lifts one
hand and waves
it in the snake's direction,
feebly. The snake watches the
hand for a
moment, then goes back to
watching the man, looking into
his eyes.
Hmmm. Maybe the snake had no
interest in biting him? It hadn't
rattled yet -
that was a good sign. Maybe he
wasn't going to die of snake bite
after all.
He then remembers that he'd
looked up when he'd reached
the center here
because he thought he'd heard
a voice. He was still very woozy -
he was
likely to pass out soon, the sun
still beat down on him even
though he was
now on cool stone. He still didn't
have anything to drink. But
maybe he had
actually heard a voice. This
stone didn't look natural. Nor
did that white
post sticking up out of the
stone. Someone had to have
built this. Maybe
they were still nearby. Maybe
that was who talked to him.
Maybe this snake
was even their pet, and that's
why it wasn't biting.
He tries to clear his throat to
say, "Hello," but his throat is
too dry. All
that comes out is a coughing or
wheezing sound. There is no way
he's going
to be able to talk without
something to drink. He feels his
pocket, and the
bottle with the wiper fluid is still
there. He shakily pulls the bottle
out,
almost losing his balance and
falling on his back in the
process. This isn't
good. He doesn't have much
time left, by his reckoning,
before he passes
out.

He decides against laying down
on the cool stone. If he's going
to die here
in the middle of this
hallucination, he at least wants
to see what's in the
center before he goes. He keeps
crawling.
It's the third time that he hears
the voice before he realizes what
he's
hearing. He would swear that
someone just said, "Greetings,
traveler. You do
not look well. Do you hear me?"
He stops crawling. He tries to
look up from where he is on his
hands and
knees, but it's too much effort
to lift his head. So he tries
something
different - he leans back and
tries to sit up on the stone.
After a few
seconds, he catches his balance,
avoids falling on his face, sits
up, and
tries to focus his eyes. Blurry.
He rubs his eyes with the back
of his hands
and tries again. Better this time.
Yep. He can see. He's sitting in
the middle of a large, flat, dark
expanse
of stone. Directly next to him,
about three feet away, is a
white post or
pole about two inches in
diameter and sticking up about
four or five feet
out of the stone, at an angle.
And wrapped around this white
rod, tail with rattle on it
hovering and
seeming to be ready to start
rattling, is what must be a
fifteen foot long
desert diamondback rattlesnake,
looking directly at him.
He stares at the snake in shock.
He doesn't have the energy to
get up and
run away. He doesn't even have
the energy to crawl away. This is
it, his
final resting place. No matter
what happens, he's not going to
be able to
move from this spot.

Finally, he reaches the area he'd
seen from the dune. It takes
him a minute of crawling on it
before he realizes that he's no
longer on sand - he's now
crawling on some kind of dark
stone. Stone with some kind of
marking on it - a pattern cut
into the stone. He's too tired to
stand up and try to see what the
pattern is - so he just keeps
crawling. He crawls towards the
center,
where his blurry eyes still see
something in the middle of the
dark stone
area.
His mind, detached in a strange
way, notes that either his hands
and knees are so burnt by the
sand that they no longer feel
pain, or that this dark
stone, in the middle of a burning
desert with a pounding,
punishing sun
overhead, doesn't seem to be
hot. It almost feels cool. He
considers lying
down on the nice cool surface.
Cool, dark stone. Not a good
sign. He must be hallucinating
this. He's
probably in the middle of a patch
of sand, already lying face down
and
dying, and just imagining this
whole thing. A desert mirage.
Soon the
beautiful women carrying
pitchers of water will come up
and start giving him
a drink. Then he'll know he's
gone.

He stops, at the bottom of the
dune. After a minute or two, he
finds enough
energy to try to sit up and get
the sand out of his face and
clothes. When
he clears his eyes enough, he
looks around to make sure that
the dark spot
in the sand it still there and he
hadn't just imagined it.
So, seeing the large, flat, dark
spot on the sand is still there,
he begins
to crawl towards it. He'd get up
and walk towards it, but he
doesn't seem to
have the energy to get up and
walk right now. He must be in
the final stages
of dehydration he figures, as he
crawls. If this place in the sand
doesn't
have water, he'll likely never
make it anywhere else. This is
his last
chance.
He gets closer and closer, but
still can't see what's in the
middle of the
dark area. His eyes won't quite
focus any more for some reason.
And lifting
his head up to look takes so
much effort that he gives up
trying. He just
keeps crawling.

While crawling, if his throat weren't so dry, he'd laugh. He's finally
gotten to the hackneyed image of a man lost in the desert - crawling through
the sand on his hands and knees. If would be the perfect image, he imagines, if only his clothes were more ragged. The people crawling through the desert
in the cartoons always had ragged clothes. But his have lasted without any
rips so far. Somebody will probably find his dessicated corpse half buried in the sand years from now, and his clothes will still be in fine shape -
shake the sand out, and a good wash, and they'd be wearable again. He wishes his throat were wet enough to laugh. He coughs a little instead, and it hurts.

He finally makes it to the top of the sand dune. Now that he's at the top,
he struggles a little, but manages to stand up and look around. All he sees
is sand. Sand, and more sand. Behind him, about a mile away, he thinks he
sees the rocky ground he left to head into this sand. Ahead of him, more
dunes, more sand. This isn't where he drove his SUV. This is Hell. Or close enough.

Again, he doesn't know what to do. He decides to drink the rest of the wiper
fluid while figuring it out. He takes out the bottle, and is removing the
cap, when he glances to the side and sees something. Something in the sand. At the bottom of the dune, off to the side, he sees something strange. It's a flat area, in the sand. He stops taking the cap of the bottle off, and tries to look closer. The area seems to be circular. And it's dark - darker than the sand. And, there seems to be something in the middle of it, but he can't tell what it is. He looks as hard as he can, and still can tell from
here. He's going to have to go down there and look.

He puts the bottle back in his pocket, and starts to stumble down the dune.
After a few steps, he realizes that he's in trouble - he's not going to be able to keep his balance. After a couple of more sliding, tottering steps, he falls and starts to roll down the dune. The sand it so hot when his body hits it that for a minute he thinks he's caught fire on the way down - like a movie car wreck flashing into flames as it goes over the cliff, before it ever even hits the ground. He closes his eyes and mouth, covers his face with his hands, and waits to stop rolling.

He's quit worrying about the denaturing of the wiper fluid. If it kills him,
it kills him - if he didn't drink it, he'd die anyway. Besides, he's pretty
sure that whatever substance they denature the fluid with is just designed to make you sick - their way of keeping winos from buying cheap wiper fluid for the ethanol content. He can handle throwing up, if it comes to that.

He walks. He walks in the hot, dry, windless desert. Sand, rocks, hills,
dunes, the occasional scrawny cactus or dried bush. No sign of water.
Sometimes he'll see a little movement to one side or the other, but whatever moved is usually gone before he can focus his eyes on it. Probably birds, lizards, or mice. Maybe snakes, though they usually move more at night. He's careful to stay away from the movements.

After a while, he begins to stagger. He's not sure if it's fatigue, heat
stroke finally catching him, or maybe he was wrong and the denaturing of the wiper fluid was worse than he thought. He tries to steady himself, and keep going.

After more walking, he comes to a large stretch of sand. This is good! He
knows he passed over a stretch of sand in the SUV - he remembers doing
donuts in it. Or at least he thinks he remembers it - he's getting woozy
enough and tired enough that he's not sure what he remembers any more or if
he's hallucinating. But he thinks he remembers it. So he heads off into it,
trying to get to the other side, hoping that it gets him closer to the town.

He was heading for a town, wasn't he? He thinks he was. He isn't sure any more. He's not even sure how long he's been walking any more. Is it still morning? Or has it moved into afternoon and the sun is going down again? It must be afternoon - it seems like it's been too long since he started out.

He walks through the sand.

After a while, he comes to a big dune in the sand. This is bad. He doesn't
remember any dunes when driving over the sand in his SUV. Or at least he
doesn't think he remembers any. This is bad.

But, he has no other direction to go. Too late to turn back now. He figures
that he'll get to the top of the dune and see if he can see anything from
there that helps him find the town. He keeps going up the dune.

Halfway up, he slips in the bad footing of the sand for the second or third
time, and falls to his knees. He doesn't feel like getting back up - he'll
just fall down again. So, he keeps going up the dune on his hand and knees.

He wakes up the next morning feeling absolutely lousy. His eyes are gummy and his mouth and nose feel like they're full of sand. He so thirsty that he can't even swallow. He barely got any sleep because it was so cold. He'd forgotten how cold it got at night in the desert and hadn't noticed it the night before because he'd been in his car.

He knows the Rule of Threes - three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food - then you die. Some people can make it a little longer, in the best situations. But the desert heat and having to walk and sweat isn't the best situation to be without water. He figures, unless he finds water, this is his last day.

He rinses his mouth out with a little of the windshield wiper fluid. He waits a while after spitting that little bit out, to see if his mouth goes numb, or he feels dizzy or something. Has his mouth gone numb? Is it just in
his mind? He's not sure. He'll go a little farther, and if he still doesn't
find water, he'll try drinking some of the fluid.

Then he has to face his next, harder question - which way does he go from here? Does he keep walking the same way he was yesterday (assuming that he still knows which way that is), or does he try a new direction? He has no idea what to do.

Looking at the hills and dunes around him, he thinks he knows the direction he was heading before. Just going by a feeling, he points himself somewhat to the left of that, and starts walking.

As he walks, the day starts heating up. The desert, too cold just a couple of hours before, soon becomes an oven again. He sweats a little at first, and then stops. He starts getting worried at that - when you stop sweating he knows that means you're in trouble - usually right before heat stroke.

He decides that it's time to try the windshield wiper fluid. He can't wait
any longer - if he passes out, he's dead. He stops in the shade of a large
rock, takes the bottle out, opens it, and takes a mouthful. He slowly
swallows it, making it last as long as he can. It feels so good in his dry
and cracked throat that he doesn't even care about the nasty taste. He takes
another mouthful, and makes it last too. Slowly, he drinks half the bottle.
He figures that since he's drinking it, he might as well drink enough to
make some difference and keep himself from passing out.

He walks for the entire day. By the end of the day he's really thirsty. He's
been sweating all day, and his lips are starting to crack. He's reapplied the sunblock twice, and tried to stay under the umbrella, but he still feels sunburned. The windshield wiper fluid sloshing in the bottle in his pocket is really getting tempting now. He knows that it's mainly water and some ethanol and coloring, but he also knows that they add some kind of poison to it to keep people from drinking it. He wonders what the poison is, and
whether the poison would be worse than dying of thirst.

He pushes on, trying to get to that small town before dark.

By the end of the day he starts getting worried. He figures he's been walking at least 3 miles an hour, according to his watch for over 10 hours. That means that if his estimate was right that he should be close to the
town. But he doesn't recognize any of this. He had to cross a dry creek bed a mile or two back, and he doesn't remember coming through it in the SUV. He figures that maybe he got his direction off just a little and that the dry creek bed was just off to one side of his path. He tells himself that he's close, and that after dark he'll start seeing the town lights over one of these hills, and that'll be all he needs.

As it gets dim enough that he starts stumbling over small rocks and things,
he finds a spot and sits down to wait for full dark and the town lights.

Full dark comes before he knows it. He must have dozed off. He stands back
up and turns all the way around. He sees nothing but stars.

He stayed with the car for a day or so, but his one bottle of water ran out
and he was getting thirsty. He thought maybe he knew the direction back, now that he'd paid attention to the sun and thought he'd figured out which way was north, so he decided to start walking. He figured he only had to go about 30 miles or so and he'd be back to the small town he'd gotten gas in last.

He thinks about walking at night to avoid the heat and sun, but based upon
how dark it actually was the night before, and given that he has no flashlight, he's afraid that he'll break a leg or step on a rattlesnake. So,
he puts on some sun block, puts the rest in his pocket for reapplication
later, brings an umbrella he'd had in the back of the SUV with him to give
him a little shade, pours the windshield wiper fluid into his water bottle
in case he gets that desperate, brings his pocket knife in case he finds a cactus that looks like it might have water in it, and heads out in the
direction he thinks is right.

Presents:
The Longest Joke in the World:
After much research, we have found the longest joke in the world.
Enjoy.
The Longest Joke in the World
* * *
Lost in the Desert

So, there's a man crawling through the desert.
He'd decided to try his SUV in a little bit of cross-country travel, had great fun zooming over the badlands and through the sand, got lost, hit a big rock, and then he couldn't get it started again. There were no cell phone towers anywhere near, so his cell phone was useless. He had no family, his parents had died a few years before in an auto accident, and his few friends had no idea he was out here.