From: jvogel@math.rutgers.edu (jeff vogel) Newsgroups: talk.bizarre Subject: Qualifier Exams Fantasy. Message-ID: <Mar.24.13.13.03.1994.7365@math.rutgers.edu> Date: 24 Mar 94 18:13:03 GMTI'm standing at the blackboard, in front of my six questioners. There is a brief, intense moment of silence. Then one of them says:
"State and sketch the proof of Caratheodory's theorem."
There is another long pause. Then, I raise both my hands and dig my fingernails into the crack running along the top of my skull, front to back. (I have one. You have one. Everyone has one.) I dig my fingernails in hard, and pull.
With a sickly, moist ripping sound, my head falls away in two halves, my face hanging loose like the skin on wet testicles. And, left there, suspended pertly atop my spine, is my brain. But it's not just suspended there calmly, dripping quietly. It's flaming. Sheets of flame roar up from it, leaving a small charred circle on the ceiling. And there is smoke. Thick clouds of greasy, foul smelling smoke leaving a haze in the room.
Then, after a few moments, I lift the two halves of my head up and put them back into place.
The examiners sit in stunned silence. Sanity slips away, and they ponder the fact that there is no God, no loving God anyway, or if there ever was a loving God, he has abandoned them, leaving them alone to face the hideous monstrousity before them.
So they pass me.
- Jeff Vogel
Rutgers math
"Hello. Would you like to WARM YOUR HANDS by the HEAT OF MY BRAAAIIIINNNN?"