One pure fractal made in Apophysis 2.09 and mirrored upon itself
Almira Banneker-Jackson was the wife my uncle waited 80 years to have – they had been friends in the Academy, but 60 years of life had gone by for both of them before they met again in a time and space for both to fall in love and get married.
Aunt Almira was deeply loved by her second husband, and knew how to deeply love him in return – the “SHEnanigans,” as he was fond of saying about her high-spirited and hilarious hijinks, were much appreciated because life gets hard when you are a genius with a history-changing idea, and everyone else is thinking of how to make a weapon or a garbage disposal with it.
My aunt presented my uncle with a journal some time into that portion of the process of his work actually becoming part of every fleet ship, and he took one look at it and just broke out laughing.
“Isn't this the perfect type of book to write every dumb thing in, though, Benjamin?”
“Is it ever!”
Aunt Almira showed it to me, with the alien in the image on the cover and the words “Knot Bothered, Too Tied,” written as the title, and I also started laughing because I knew the reference.
“There is nothing more unbothered in the galaxy than a Salubarian Knot Serpent,” Aunt Almira said, “It does not understand that there is a top predator in the galaxy beside itself, and so humans and humanoids who think they are said top predators are forever getting their money's worth if they survive an encounter. So then, when I saw this I thought, 'that's so Ben!'”
My uncle and I were rolling.
“I've known you 60 years, Benjamin – unbothered is your middle name, but ain't nobody even noticed that you are either making your enemies into your friends or outliving them? Ain't nobody noticed YET that you are too smart to be bothered? Ain't nobody yet noticed that if they stay too stupid for too long and you have to wrap your mind about getting them out of the way, they would have a better chance with a Salubarian Knot Serpent?”
“Well, no,” my uncle said as he pulled out and handed me a handkerchief before mopping his own face from the tears. “That's kind of the point, Almira!”
“I know – that's why I said, 'That's so Ben!'”
No one yet has reported seeing a Salubarian Knot Serpent close up. Those who got too close to soon were too quickly seeing whatever eternity they had prepared their souls to meet – imagine a boa constrictor multiplied a hundred times in length and strength, and with poison glands in its skin that are really industrial-strength acid. Provided its prey survived its initial strike and grip as it vaulted into the air from its local treetops or from a coiled spring-up – that's the moment the picture was taken with a long zoom lens as the creature prepared to pounce on something the size of a grizzly bear on earth – from the nearest field to land, coils open, around the prey, the prey would be dissolved in the few seconds after that.
And yet at the same time, this fearsome creature was on a journal for a man who if put to it could certainly be as dangerous, but also understood the other side of the matter: what went into the “grip” of that book would never be heard again except by the ears of God, and my uncle would therefore be assisted in maintaining his reputation of being a wise, well-spoken luminary who never just reacted to the foolishness he heard, but responded rightly.
As I said, my aunt knew how to love my uncle well. After this, even most bad ideas were a cause for laughter unless they were really bad, but Aunt Almira was right about that, too: Uncle Benjamin was going to remain unbothered and handle business, and you really did have a better chance with a Salubarian Knot Serpent than getting on the wrong side of that.
