An Interview with Warren Andrew Slay, Part 7
A man, I believe it was the same one I saw at the parking deck, came to my door a few days ago. He greeted me with a smile and then shoved a pistol into my ribs. He pushed himself inside and then threw me onto the carpet.
“Fine job getting those questions answered. Now we need more from you.”
“What is this? Why did you push me down? I am injured. You have hurt my back and hip.”
“Just get up. We need to talk.”
I struggled to get to one knee. At that point, I fell back to the floor. It was clear I was seriously injured. I needed a doctor.
“Just get up; you are fine. You fell onto the carpet, for crying out loud. Get up.”
“I am an old man. I don’t bounce like I used to. I am hurt…bad. I need to go to the hospital.”
“I don’t get paid enough for this.”
The man took out another slip of paper and tossed it on the ground near my feet. I watched him slam the door behind him. After I was sure he was gone, I called a neighbor, a guy named Tibor, and he drove me to the hospital. I am writing this post from my hospital bed. I am in a lot of pain, but if I turn just so, I can breathe without much trouble. I told the doctors that I had slipped and fallen. They bought it.
I haven’t told Warren what happened, and I probably won’t. He has other things to worry about. I know he has other pen names; I think lots of others. He certainly could replace me if he was so inclined.
I finally got around to looking at the slip of paper the criminal left at my house. There was just one question. In bold capital letters, it stated, “IS GOD A MATHEMATICIAN? In lower case was written, “ask him.”
So, that is where I am at. I am supposed to ask Warren the question. Why would this man and the gang he represents want to ask such a question? I don’t know. Warren is not a theologian and holds no influence over the public. I am quite certain that no one cares what he thinks about anything. He would be the first to tell you that no one listens to him, just as no one reads his books or clicks on his blog.
And yet here we are…
Below is the text of our short exchange. As always, it was lightly edited for clarity.
RTNM: I have just one question. It is a big one, so you can answer it however you see fit.
WAS: Wait, you are now comfortable telling me how I should or should not answer questions posed by you, a humorless baboon with the cranial capacity of a juvenile Australopithecus. Really? You are in need of serious revision.
RTNM: Fine. You are going to do exactly what you want anyway. I can’t imagine a scenario where I can influence or counsel you. All I will say is that this person, the criminal who keeps accosting me and demanding that I ask you these questions, is a serious and dangerous individual.
WAS: I’m not so sure about that. Maybe he is just misunderstood. Also, you might be delusional.
RTNM: Fine. Here is your question, IS GOD A MATHEMATICIAN?
WAS: Yes. Is that all?
RTNM: That is all that was written on the paper. Elaborate if you want. Leave if you wish. I am beyond the point of caring.
WAS: Very good. I’ll leave.
RTNM: Are you sure? I don’t know what will happen if you refuse to answer this question.
WAS: I did answer it.
RTNM: Why won’t you elaborate?
WAS: I have limited time. By that, I mean limited time alive. Turning sixty puts that into an even sharper focus for me. There are things I need to get done, and interacting with you isn’t helping me. You are nothing more than a bizarre distraction.
RTNM: There is more I am not telling you. I think I know who the person is, the one who attacked me.
WAS: Fascinating.
RTNM: You don’t want to know?
WAS: No. I could not care less. What did I just tell you about time? I have to focus if I want to get some important things completed. At least, they are important to me.
RTNM: Certainly, I understand, but…
WAS: No buts. I have to go.
With that, Warren got up and left. We were at a library. We were able to get a rather large study room for the interview. That was just by chance; we didn’t reserve it because I had no idea when or if he would agree to meet me.
I watched him close the door to the room. He was headed toward the exit when he was approached by a beautiful young woman, much younger than him. I saw him furrow his brow as the conversation became more animated. She kept pointing at his shoes, red checkerboard Vans, as he stood stupefied. I have no idea what the conversation was about.
After a minute or so, she left him and disappeared up a flight of stairs. Warren watched her go. He then turned toward the exit. I knew it was going to be some time before he talked to me again. After all, he is a busy man with a limited timetable, and I am just a figment with all the time in the world.
POSTSCRIPT
I did a little sleuthing, and I found out who the young woman was talking to Warren after he left the study room. She is a Worthington Fellow; she recently graduated from Harvard and was brought to Iroquois County to work on the local paper. The Worthington Fund is sponsoring her stay, paying her salary at the paper, and providing accommodations at The Worthington Compound. Apparently, she was talking to Warren about the announcement from Harvard University that they are discontinuing all alumni email accounts. Any graduate used to get a Harvard email address that they could use however they saw fit. The emails would come to Harvard and then get forwarded off to wherever the person wanted. They will all be inactive by the end of the year. The argument is that it is getting harder to forward emails through the spam detectors of the big email services. This has become a problem not only for Harvard but for all email forwarding services. The university decided it would be too expensive to give each alumnus (some 400,000) their own dedicated Harvard email account. The university argues that they would have to hire a bunch of customer service people and that there are several legal hurdles they would rather not attempt to jump through.
Interesting, isn’t it? I thought they were angry with each other when I watched the two of them talking. I made up all kinds of stories about why that might be. You know how imaginations work, right? An animated discussion about an email forwarding service was not among the possibilities. I stand corrected.
Is there anything to be learned from my mistake? Any great lesson? I would think not. Had I known there was a Harvard-related email issue in the wind, I might not have jumped to conclusions as I did. Nothing to see here; let’s all move along and get on with our days. If we try, maybe at least some of us can be productive.
