A perfect day. And not just because of the crystal blue sky, the slight breeze that blew across the sand, or the way the sun hit the beach as wave after wave crested and splashed against the shore. It was a perfect day for building sand castles, exactly what Virginia’s son was doing.
Her son was out of the hospital after several operations. He had recovered, and except for a slight limp, he was back to his old self. Now, he and another kid he’d just met were building a sand castle at the water’s edge. Of course, it wasn’t a castle but formless globs of sand surrounded by a moat. But they seemed to be enjoying themselves as Virginia leaned back in her beach chair, stretched her arms out, took a deep breath, smiled, and watched them build their ridiculous creation. Indeed, this was one of those times, an occasion of happiness. No doubt about it: a day to remember.
“Hey, Mom, look what we found!”
“It’s just an old dirty bottle. Bring it over here, and we’ll throw it out.”
“It’s got something in it,” her son’s friend said, holding the bottle high. She was a tall, thin girl who looked a few years older than Virginia’s son and stared at the bottle as if they had discovered the Hope Diamond.
“Ok, let me take a look at it.”
They ran up to Virginia, who put a towel around the bottle and held it with both hands. It was a thick wine bottle with amber glass, a cork, and a plastic cover with rusted wire. Virginia carefully untied the wire while her son and his new friend looked on, engrossed in the procedure as if they were watching open heart surgery.
She continued pulling at the cork with all her might but could not pull it out. Then she dipped the head of the bottle into the burning sand, hoping the heat would loosen the cork. Sure enough, it popped right out when she gave the cork a few hard tugs. A piece of paper with writing was folded inside.
“What is it, Mom?” her son asked.
“It’s a note of some kind.”
“Maybe it’s from someone stranded on an island, and they need help!” her son’s friend said.
“It’s written in French,” Virginia said, carefully taking the note out of the bottle and unfolding it, “and there’s a date at the top. God! It’s been in the water for ten years!”
“Can you read French?” the little girl asked, so excited she almost fell over.
“Let me give it a try,” Virginia said, holding the paper, which was in excellent shape given its age.
Virginia slowly began translating as her son, and his friend looked over her shoulder.
My name is Marie, and who are you? I hope you’re having a nice day. I live in a small town in Southern France where I go to school when I’m not throwing bottles like this into the ocean. I’m so glad you found me! And I’m glad I found you! I hope you have a very nice day and a happy life.
Virginia’s son and his friend gave one another an astonished look and laughed.
“Wasn’t that nice!” Virginia declared. “We should write a reply and send it back in the bottle.”
“Could we?” her son and his friend asked.
“Why not!” Virginia said as she took a notepad and a pen out of her handbag. “What do you want to say?”
Her son thought for a moment.
“We got your letter, and it was very good. If you ever come to America, I hope you will visit us. I hope you are having fun wherever you are.”
Her son’s friend added,
“You write very good notes. It was fun reading it, and I’m glad there are people like you in the world.”
Virginia wrote this down, dated it, and added her mailing address and email address at the bottom of the note.
“Do you think she’ll get it?”
“It’s unlikely, but we should give it a try anyway.”
“Can we send it back now?”
“No, we’ll have to take it home and seal the bottle. Then, we can bring it back tomorrow and toss it into the water at high tide.”
“I have to go,” the girl said. “Thanks for letting me write the note.”
Just as she said this, a lifeguard walked up to them.
“You know you’re going to have to bring that into the parks and recreation department. It’s state property. Just so you know.” He then walked off abruptly, having done his duty for the Commonwealth.
“Jerk,” Virginia muttered.
The university campus where Virginia worked was teeming with excitement. News trucks from all over the world were everywhere, and crews were setting up cameras around the building Virginia’s chemistry department shared with the astronomy department. By the look of things, some kind of event was about to occur. Something was definitely up.
“What’s with all the news media?” Virginia asked the receptionist as she entered the front office.
“You mean you haven’t heard? What planet have you been on?”
“Oh, just at the hospital with my son, who was deathly ill.”
“Oh, you’re son, right! Well, it’s that signal the WEBB telescope discovered. It’s from a nearby star, WOLF something or another.
“You mean WOLF 1061?” this always sounded like a radio station to Virginia. And as it turned out, this was not far from the truth,
“I guess so. They think it’s some kind of message, and they’re going to use that new supercomputer we just got to decipher it. I guess the one at MIT is down. We’re the only ones in the country who have a working tantrum computer.”
“You mean quantum computer.”
“Whatever. They got a big screen set up in the astronomy lecture hall. The hall is packed—Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy, Philosophy—everyone.”
Virginia was impressed. The thought of all these faculty members in the same room was astonishing since most of them couldn’t stand one another. For instance, Sarah Bernstein, head of the astronomy department, detested Sam Wilson of the physics department and spread a rumor that he had plagiarized a recent paper. David Loftwell of the philosophy department was having an affair with Marcia White of the chemistry department, who was married to Jason Strong of the physics department, who had a gambling addiction, which Richard Riley of Astronomy was happy to reveal to anyone and everyone. The campus was constantly abuzz with gossip, denunciations, and rancor.
And the administration was no different. Michael Gomez, dean of students, was having an affair with at least two undergrads and was paying off his secretary to keep it quiet, so you had to be nice to her. The university led the world in several academic disciplines but excelled in nastiness and vitriol. Virginia wondered if the students were being groomed to be jerks, too. “We’re sorry, but your paper wasn’t snarky enough. You’re only getting a “D.”‘
So Virginia kept to herself, rarely socializing with the rest of the faculty and going off campus for lunch. She was hardly surprised that no one welcomed her back or asked about her son or how he was doing. But that’s the way they were; it was all business. What the hell? She had her molecules to attend to, and they never gave you a hard time except when they refused to bond with other molecules. Science marches on.
Her boss, Dr. Strausman, head of the Chemistry department, saw her in the hallway and greeted her with a “we need to get to work on the new protean, Virginia, ASAP!”
“And I hope you’re doing well too!” Virginia mumbled. But what the hell? The prestige of a great university was at stake. The price you pay for being a chemistry professor at one of the country’s leading universities,Virginia thought.
She was about to enter her office when her lab assistant, Timothy, ran up to her. A first-year grad student who was at least fifty pounds overweight with long red hair, he was one of the few people on campus she could talk to.
“Good to see you back again, Virginia,” he said, breathless. “How’s your son doing?”
But before she could answer, he said, “I’ve got to run. This thing’s incredible. The signal’s going to be deciphered any minute.”
“You mean the signal from WOLF 1061?”
“Right, it’s going to be up on the screen in the astronomy lecture hall any minute now.”
The lecture hall was packed with faculty members, grad students, reporters, and their camera crews. It was almost impossible for Virginia and her lab assistant to open the door. After pushing and shoving, they could finally squeeze into the auditorium.
Dressed in his best three-piece suit, standing six foot three with a mane of white hair, the Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Jason Barnard cut an august figure and could not have seemed more pious, looking directly into the news cameras as if he were about to deliver the Sermon on the Mount.
“We are here today to witness the most significant event in the history of the human race, possibly in the history of our galaxy! Our MAX 2 quantum computer is about to decipher a message intercepted by The WEBB telescope and sent directly to Earth from WOLF 1061. We will all remember this moment for the rest of our lives! Even those not here today will remember what they were doing and where they were on this wondrous day. What you are about to witness on this screen will stay with you forever and will be passed on to your children and your children’s children. This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for!”
Gasps of awe filled the auditorium. Some of the faculty members even looked like they were about to cry.
“Dr. Barnard, the signal is about to be revealed,” one of the engineers announced. All eyes were fixed on the giant computer screen. Virginia reached out and held her lab assistant’s hand, whose palms were sweating. She could almost hear the chords of Thus Spoke Zarathustra in the background.
Slowly, the words appeared on the screen, and a robotic voice announced:
“SO WHAT…”
“So what?
“What does it mean?
“I’ll tell you what it means: it means the existentialists were right all along!”
“That’s it, the existentialists were right!”
“It’s a statement about the meaninglessness of the universe!
“If only Sartre had lived to see this day!”
The lone phenomenologist in the philosophy department gloated while the logical positivists hung their heads in shame.
Victoria and her assistant gave each other a quizzical look.
“There’s more to the message than that,” the engineer announced. “There are seven words in the message. The rest of the message is about to appear.”
The entire auditorium stared at the screen as if their lives depended on it.
“SO WHAT’s…WITH…ALL…”
“Oh, it’s beautiful! It’s so profound. It’s about all that is and all that ever will be. It’s about the totality of the universe!” a woman shouted.
“It has to be. I never thought I’d live to see this day!” The man standing next to her declared.
“Wait, there’s more,” an engineer announced. “There has to be. There are seven words. And here it comes!”
The excitement in the room was palpable, and people literally held their breath. Barnard looked down at them benevolently and with a look of studied wonder.
“SO… WHAT’S…WITH ALL…THE ASSHOLES?”
These words, direct from WOLF 1061, appeared in bold black letters as the robotic voice announced the question over and over again. Everyone in the room was shocked except for Virginia, who was about to laugh out loud but checked herself when Dr. Staussman gave her a look.
“It needs editing,” the head of the English department declared. “Perhaps the last word isn’t just a crude profanity but actually a part of the anatomy. Maybe they don’t have them on their planet and are wondering why we do.”
“Maybe it’s a code of some kind.” The head of the philosophy department stated.
“It can’t be, you moron,” Barnard shot back. “The whole point behind the quantum computer is that it precisely decodes the light signal into perfect English.”
“It’s been hacked!” a reporter yelled.
All eyes turned to the head of the computer science department, who looked horrified. His face was bright red, and his eyes looked as if they were about to pop out of his head. Virginia was afraid he was going to have a heart attack or a stroke.
“That’s impossible!” Barnard said. “You can’t hack a quantum computer, at least not yet.”
A long silence followed. Then Barnard looked out over the audience and announced in a deep, solemn voice: “It means what it says.” As he said this, the robotic voice announced the message again:
SO WHAT’S WITH ALL THE ASSHOLES?
“Shut it down! Shut that thing down now!” Barnard yelled.
The message disappeared while the people in the auditorium continued to stare at the screen with looks of shock and disgust. A strange silence filled the room. The most important day in the history of the human race had turned into the most humiliating. Finally, a graduate student broke into a laugh. Everyone glared at her. It was as if she were laughing at a wake or at an assassination of the president. “I’d wipe the smile off my face if I were you,” her adviser said. She immediately apologized and left the room.
“We’re through here for today,” Barnard announced, his face contorted with cosmic humiliation as he stormed off the stage. Slowly, people started to leave the auditorium, expressing their outrage as they did.
“The indignity!”
“The sick shame of it all!”
“The effrontery!”
“It was a horrible thing for them to say to us.”
“How could they even think such a thing?”
“They’re idiots! They’re a disgrace to the Milky Way!”
“Other star systems are going to hear about this, you know!”
“No, I wouldn’t! We don’t want to give them the wrong idea.”
“Perhaps, but I hope their star burns out soon!”
“No, they’re about a billion years away from that.”
“A mere second in intergalactic space/time! I’d damn well like to see it when it does!”
And on it went for the rest of the day, except for a group of about two hundred students who met on the campus mall just outside the astronomy building. One of the students played a few chords on her guitar into a microphone and then yelled, “So what’s with all the assholes?” which her audience repeated with relish, then broke into fits of laughter as they passed joints back and forth.
When Barnard saw this, he ran up to them, grabbed the microphone, and screamed, “You miserable little bastards. I’ll flunk you! I swear to God, I’ll flunk you! If any of you ever takes one of my courses, you’ll get an F! Do you hear me, an F!” He then pulled out a 38 Special and fired it into the air. Two campus cops tackled him and pulled the gun from his hand. He was carried off, kicking and screaming.
It was decided that anyone using the term “asshole” would be immediately expelled. From now on, it would be called the “A” word. It was taken up by every campus in the country and most newspapers.
A special session of the United Nations was convened. Various responses were suggested. Some recommended a simple complaint expressing regret that an advanced civilization could stoop so low. Others recommended a slew of equally vulgar responses. The Irish ambassador suggested sending a message that said, “it takes one to know one!” This caused the Indian Ambassador to laugh so hard that his drink came up through his nose. Finally, they decided to ignore the message and act as if the star system did not exist. There would be no response. “It doesn’t deserve any,” The Secretary-General announced.
They decided to consider WOLF 1061 a pariah and never to communicate with the star system again. No signal emanating from the star system would ever be received again; no contact whatsoever would be allowed. “Let them send their idiotic messages elsewhere! Earth is done with WOLF 1061!”
“Serves Them Right!” the New York Post front page read.
Virginia looked at her watch. “Shit! It’s high tide!”
“What?” her lab assistant asked, putting a test tube back in its rack.
“I promised my son I’d take him to the breakwater when it’s high tide.”
She threw her jacket on and ran out of the lab while her assistant scratched his head and mumbled, “Don’t want to miss that; it only happens every day!”
It was a misty late afternoon with a gray sky– a fine day for bottle tossing. Virginia’s son stood just outside the school entrance. When he got into the backseat of the car, she looked in the mirror and could tell he had been crying. Something was wrong. Someone must have said something.
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” he replied, sounding like he was about to break up again.
“Well, it sounds like something to me. What happened?”
“They called me ‘”peg leg.”‘
“Jesus!”
“Why do they say things like that, Mom?” her son asked, about to cry again.
“Sometimes, people are just mean. Sometimes they think they are funny when they’re really just being stupid or cruel. But, usually, they’re just being ridiculous, you know, like when they fart!”
This made her son laugh. She gave him a Kleenex to blow his nose and wipe away the tears.
“Hey, when we get home, let’s clean up and take that bottle out to the breakwater and give it a good send-off.”
“Can I throw it in the water?”
“Of course, you found it!”
Since it was a chilly, gray day, no one could watch them launch their bottle when they reached the breakwater. Virginia and her son had the Atlantic Ocean all to themselves.
“What’s in the message?” her son asked.
“Why what you and your friend wrote, of course! Oh, and I added something.”
“What?”
We hope you are very nice people, but even if you’re not, we hope you’ll like this message, and we’re glad you found it.
“Here, you get to do the honors,” she said, handing the bottle to her son.
He held it briefly, looking slightly confused, then threw it as hard as he could into the water. They watched it bob up and down like a buoy as the current carried it to sea.
“That was fun, Mom,” he said, putting his arm around her. “We have more fun than anyone! Do you think they’ll get it?”
“I don’t know, but it really doesn’t matter. After all, it’s the thought that counts.”