The Beauty Pageant

Once upon a time, Li'l Miggle wanted to enter into the local beauty pageant. Momma Cat said, "Mm, okay," so Li'l Miggle signed up. Of course, that meant that Pirate Bun had to join too. And Li'l Tiggle didn't want to be left out, so he signed up too.

The first competition was a formal-wear contest. Li'l Miggle dressed up in a tasteful black evening gown. The judges murmured, "Hmm," and scribbled down their notes. Pirate Bun wore a revealing cocktail dress, and the judges all whispered, "Escandalo!" and scratched in their notes. Li'l Tiggle walked down the stage in a full tux, complete with tails, and the judges all remarked, "What a dashing young cat!" and took copious notes.

The second competition was a question-answer session. The judges asked Li'l Miggle, "If you could give everyone one thing to promote world peace, what would it be?" Li'l Miggle thought long and hard, and answered, "Tuna for everyone!" The judges said, "Hmm," and wrote down their notes. Then they asked Pirate Bun, "If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?" Pirate Bun answered boldly, "Yarr, I would be a pirate and sail upon the seas!" The judges exclaimed, "Oh my," and wrote down their notes. Then they asked Li'l Tiggle, "If you could do anything in the world, what would you do?" Li'l Tiggle scratched his head and thought, then replied, "I would win this beauty pageant!" And the judges all said, "Aww," and wrote down their notes.

The final competition was a swim-suit contest. Li'l Miggle strolled onto the stage in a sleek one-piece, and the judges nodded and took notes. Pirate Bun sauntered out in a sexy two-piece, and the judges gasped and took notes. Li'l Tiggle missed the memo and misunderstood the contest, so he came out dripping wet in a tiny speedo, so that you could see all his curves and musculature, and the judges exclaimed, "What a well-formed cat!" and took notes.

In the end, the judges announced, "Due to the irregularity of this year's competition, we have decided to make a new category! The runner-up for the Queen's Category is Pirate Bun! And the title of Queen of the Year goes to Li'l Miggle! And finally, for our newest category, the title of King of the Year goes to Li'l Tiggle! Congratulations!"

And they all lived happily ever after, once Li'l Tiggle finally got dry again.

Motorboat Mig

Once upon a time, Motorboat Mig was sailing down the great Mississippi. She came to dock at a small port along the river to take on supplies, and was immediately accosted by Pirate Bun!

"Motorboat Mig!" cried Pirate Bun, "I challenge you to a duel! We'll see if you have the right to boat on the Mississippi!"

"All right," meowed Mig, "I accept. For the challenge, I choose ... purring!"

"A purring duel, eh?" Pirate Bun shook herself, hunkered down, and started things off with a low, steady rumble.

"Well now," Mig said, preening, "you know they don't call me Motorboat for nothing." So saying the little cat cut loose with the deepest, loudest, rumbliest purr you've ever heard! It was such a powerful purr that it bowled Bun right over, tumbling her tail over whiskers down the docks.

But Pirate Bun recovered from the blast, shook herself again, dug in, and purred hard. They were evenly matched, and neither would give way. The two little cats hunkered on that dock for three days and three nights, purring as hard as they could, but neither would budge an inch!

Finally, Mig said, "You're pretty good there, pussy cat! Let's stop this -- on the count of three." So they counted, one, two, three! And they both stopped purring, and looked at each other.

"Well, I guess you deserve to boat on the Mississippi," Pirate Bun conceded.

"You're not half bad yourself," replied Motorboat Mig.

And they all boated happily ever after.

Ball Lightning - Prelude p2

Wine might just as easily be replaced with beer. I'm not entirely sure what the proper alcoholic beverage should be in this case. Either way, Daddy's drinking a decent dollop.

“Oh life, this thing called life....” Father drained a large glass of wine in a single gulp, his eyes peering intently at the cluster of little flames. “So unpredictable! Everything is chance and circumstance, like the twig floating in a stream, tripped up by a stone or trapped in a whirlpool....”

“The child is too young. He can't understand all that,” Mother said.

“He's not too young!” Father replied, “He's old enough to learn what life is really like!”

“As if you know what life is really like,” Mother answered with a sarcastic laugh.

“I know! Of course I know!” Father drained another half glass of wine, then turned toward me. “Actually, son, living a wonderful life is not at all difficult. Listen, I'll teach you: First you have to select a world-renowned, unsolved problem. The best kind are the ones that require only a sheet of paper and a pencil, like a difficult math problem. For example, Goldbach's Conjecture¹, or Fermat's Last Theorem², or something like that. Or you could even discard the paper and pencil, and focus purely on questions of natural philosophy, like the origin of the universe. Throw yourself into your study, body and soul. Only think of your efforts, never think of the rewards. In the oblivion of single-minded devotion, you can pass an entire lifetime without realizing it. The repose that people often talk about is just this sort of thing. Or you can do the opposite, and make earning money your only goal. Devote all your time to figuring out how to make money. There's no need to even ask what you'll do with the money, until you're on your deathbed, like Monsieur Grandet³, clutching a pile of gold and saying, 'Ah, it warms me....' So you see, the key to having a wonderful life depends on what you can become fascinated with. For example, me -–” Father pointed around the room at the small watercolor paintings arranged therein. They were painted in a very traditional style, the strokes conforming precisely with classical technique, and totally devoid of liveliness. Lit by the flashes of lightning through the window, the paintings looked like a bunch of flickering screens. “I fell in love with painting, even though I knew I could never become Van Gogh.”

“It's true. Idealists and cynics both think the other is quite pitiable, but actually they are very lucky,” Mother said thoughtfully.

My parents, normally extremely busy all day, had suddenly turned into philosophers, as if this were their birthdays being celebrated.

“Mom, don't move!” So saying, I plucked a single white strand from my mother's dense, crow-black hair. The strand was only half white; the other half was still black.

My father took the strand and examined it in the light. Illuminated by the lightning, the hair flashed as if it were a filament in a bulb. “As far as I know, this is the first white hair your mother's ever had in her whole life. At least, it's the first that's been found.”

¹ Goldbach's Conjecture states that every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldbach's_conjecture

² Fermat's Last Theorem states that no three positive integers a, b, and c can satisfy the equation an² + bn² = cn² for any integer value of n greater than two. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat's_Last_Theorem

³ Monsieur Grandet is a miserly character in a French novel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A9nie_Grandet

Ball Lightning - Prelude p1

All right, I'm not sure what a 14-year-old boy is doing thinking about deep sympathy for homeless creatures in a stormy night on his birthday, but there it is.

Today was my birthday. Up until my father and mother lit the candles on the birthday cake that evening, and we sat gathered around the fourteen little flames, I didn't even think about it.

This was a stormy night, the kind that made the entire universe seem intimately comprised of only the flashing lightning and our little house. In the flash of lightning, you could clearly see the falling raindrops outside the window. Those raindrops looked frozen, like clear glittering beads of crystal strung in dense ropes between heaven and earth. At this time, a thought surfaced in my mind: if the world were indeed this way, it would also be very interesting. Everyday, you'd step out and stroll amongst the dense curtains of crystal, their ting-ling, ting-ling chiming all around you. Only, how could such an exquisitely delicate world withstand the violent fury of a thunderstorm.... The world to my eyes was always different from the world in other people's eyes. I was always trying my best to transform the world. In all my years up till now, this was the only thing I had come to understand about myself.

The thunderstorm started around dusk. Since then, the lightning and thunder have come thicker and faster. At first, after each flash of lightning, my mind recalled the fleeting glimpse of that crystalline world as I scrunched up my scalp waiting for the next peal of thunder. Now, the lightning was too frequent. I could no longer tell which peal of thunder belonged to which flash of lightning.

In this night of violent storms, you can best appreciate the value of having a home. Imagining the warm embrace of home, in sharp contrast to the terror and danger of the outside world, is enough to make you drunk with pleasure. You would deeply sympathize with the homeless creatures who were forced to endure the storm. You'd want to open your window and allow them to flit inside, yet you would not dare to do so – the outside world is too frightening, and you would not dare to allow even the slightest breath of that terrifying outside world into the warmth and comfort of home.

Ball Lightning - Table of Contents

Table of Contents:

1. Prelude
6. Part 1
92. Part 2
193. Part 3
280. Afterword

Ball Lightning - Inside Cover

On a certain eldritch, rainy night, lightning in the form of a sphere violently exploded into the visions of a young man. Its piercing shriek and roar overflowed with keen rebuke, as if a ghost were playing the xun¹ in the ancient wilderness. As the ghost performed its night music, the ball lightning reduced the young man's parents to ashes in an instant, but left the stools upon which they had sat strangely icy.

That singular evening completely changed his fate. He devoted his entire life to solving that mystery of nature which had transformed him into an orphan. He never thought that, years later, his pure and lonely research of natural phenomena would be channeled into the national think tank program for “new weapons conception”. The ball lightning that he has pursued has changed into the ultimate weapon that will decide whether his homeland will survive or be destroyed in the next war.

When the tremendous power of nature harnessed by the ultimate weapon was released, an icy cold “blue sun” arose over the Gobi Desert in the northwest. The whole desert was flooded with its blue light, rendering the world strange and monstrous. Under the careful scrutiny of some cosmic observer, a future that nobody had ever dreamed of has befallen mankind....

¹ Xun – a ceramic wind instrument of China. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xun_(instrument)