by Sam Markewich

Rubber cement, found almost everywhere in nature, particularly in the Balsa and Plywood trees of the South American Hail Forest and in several species of Antarctic Blow Fish, was first synthesized in the laboratories of Southern Hell by Charles Proteus Steinmetz. Steinmetz, known as "the man who tamed rubber cement", had been working at great length on the problem of power outages caused by lightening. These outages could be so devastating as to out the power for hundreds of miles in any direction from the center of the strike, and Ephemeral Acoustic, a new age multi-cultural corporation, one of the leading producers of soft white lunar cycles and ecologically safe weapons of mass destruction, had paid Steinmetz more money than they had in their bank roll to tackle the problem.

Three minutes into the project Steinmetz became bored, as he was known to do every nanosecond, and spent the next fourteen years studying the effects of quantum tunneling of electrons on the density squared to the square root of two of hail in the Sahara Desert. Steinmetz, preferring tropical to desert climates, conducted these studies in the South American Hail Forest. There he would discover two things which would change the course of historically authentic history for all of history: Ephemeral Acoustic would not pay him to conduct studies on the effects of quantum tunneling of electrons on the density squared to the square root of two of hail in the Sahara Desert in the South American Hail Forest; and Ephemeral Acoustic would pay him to conduct studies on the effects of quantum tunneling of electrons on the density squared of hail in the Sahara Desert in the South American Hail Forest.

Steinmetz was furious and denied Ephemeral Acoustic's offer flat out. Later he would write of this incident

I have no comment at this time.

But for now, Steinmetz, with nowhere else to turn, quit Ephemeral Acoustic and went to work for Southern Hell Laboratories, which was purchased two minutes later by Ephemeral Acoustic for two to the ten billionth googleplex dollars and twenty-four dollars worth of beads and trinkets -- the largest buy-out on record for the next hour and a half.

Immediately after the purchase, Steinmetz was handed an ultimatum by the heads of the corporation: either A) get back to work on the lightening project or, 2) get back to work on the lightening project. Steinmetz chose the latter, and in no time mountainous had built a large and clunky machine which stood fourteen trillion feet in height and on quarter of a centimeter in width. Reporters from miles around were called upon to witness this colossus in action. When they arrived, cameras in ready position, Steinmetz was just putting the finishing touches on the top of the apparatus. Three-hundred years later Steinmetz finally made it down to the floor of the laboratory, whereupon he made the following statement which would go down on history:

"Darn thing won't start!"

A flood of questions followed.

"Mr. Steinmetz, is it true that this machine would not exist on an island containing no human inhabitants?"

"Mr. Steinmetz, isn't it the case that you in fact did steel the jewels and the get-away car and further that you...

"No! It's not true! I swear!"

The court room was silent. Steinmetz turned the t.v. on. It was 11:00, Saturday night, time for "Perry Mason". Tonight Perry Mason was not in court, he was demonstrating a colossal machine he had just built to an audience of philosophy students and lawyers.

Steinmetz was confused.

That strange phenomenon brought about by Steinmetz's experimental machine was encouraging: "If I could just build something entirely else I would have what I'm looking for, I'm sure of it," thought Steinmetz.

Three weeks later it was built. Steinmetz's grand machine stood shimmering in his laboratory for all to see. With this new machine, all were positive, Steinmetz would produce lightening and so be able to study its effects. Where elsewhere lightening would not strike twice, here it would, enabling Steinmetz to study it closely.

Yet when he flicked the switch something strange happened. Where an explosion of light and thunderous calamity was expected instead a flat ooze persisted. The cameras flashed away at the mucus-like goop as it flazed a jam. Reporters and executives of business alike gradually put other matters aside to gather poster board and scissors, old copies of "Boy's Life" magazine, their check books, scuba suits, yachts and L-lysine tablets, out of which collages soon grew.

Ephemeral Acoustic soon shut down, as did the Associated Press Agency, as all the nation now turned its attention towards the many uses for rubber cement, for which there were not, it turned out, many uses at all. And so life was simplified a lot, and virtually all institutions in marriage, finance and government no longer had relevance and so kicked the bucket.

Charles Proteus Steinmetz kicked the bucket a few minutes later. With him went the secret of what went awry on that fateful day. But it is said that Steinmetz's ghost still lurks in these very woods and that if you walk alone at night he'll eat you.