"Joe Haldeman - The Big Bang Theory Explained In Light Verse" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

THE BIG BANG THEORY EXPLAINED
(IN LIGHT VERSE)
Premise the First: Immortality—or even greatly prolonged life—would be no blessing.
You were born with all the brain cells you'll ever have, and you lose a certain number of
them every year, because of background radiation. Live long enough and you'll have the
intelligence of a bright cabbage.

Premise the Second: If you have enough money it will take care of itself.

"Wake me when the Dow-Jones hits a million," he said,
And took a few grams of Sweet Dreams Hydrochloride,
Closed his eyes, lay back, rested his head,
And while diverted by raunchy fantasy, died.

The friendly machines, they opened his veins:
Sucked out the blood from flesh and from bone;
Replaced it with stable polymer chains,
Then froze his wealthy ass into stone.

He owned a salt mine, miles deep but cool.
His gold coffin rested there, blissly serene,
Facing millenniums, immersed in a pool
Of nitrogen, tended by friendly machines.

To backtrack:
This wasn't a thing that our hero did lightly,
Nor fearing death: he'd died twice before
These past two centuries, and found it just slightly
Boring, lying in wait for his cash to restore
Some old failed organ—beef up his muscles—brighten his blood ...
Come out of his coffin a centuries-old stud.

But there was a limit. Because the brain
Cannot be replaced—yet it slowly decays
Assaulted in silence by treacherous rays
Of the alpha, beta, and gamma persuasion,
Destroying your brain by ablation.
You can lock yourself up in a box made of lead,
And be safe from the fallout and all cosmic ray—
But no such protection will save your poor head,
For the elements comprising your body betray
You with unstable isotopes that leak radiation,
Subjecting your neurons to steady predation.

Our hero knew this, and it made him quite mad
To know that by quantum-mechanical fiat
His ultimate fate was both sordid and sad:
The world's first immortal blithering idiot.

But over the centuries our hero'd evolved