Reverse Engineering

I was driving down the highway today, about 50MPH, when I spot some guy up ahead walking on the shoulder, his back to traffic. something seemed unusual about his speed. he seemed to be coming at me much faster than he should have been. as i got closer it became very clear why he was approaching so fast: he was walking backwards.

holy pope, did you say BACKWARDS??!!

yes!! i did!! i did taw a man walk SDRAWKCAB, no doubt about that.

i thought hey, why does it make more sense to walk forward than back? we all take a step back sometimes, so why not 200 steps? just to observe what’s going on! besides he obviously knows the way and doesn’t need to see where he’s going, and how many times did i nearly hit a guy with his eyes wide open walking forward and still not seeing where the hell he’s headed to?

he probably just likes the sight of cars speeding away rather than coming at him. can you blame him?

well, yes.

in this particular case.

because even though he was walking backwards, he was looking forward IN EAGER ANTICIPATION! whatever his destination was, he was busy putting as much distance as possible between it and himself. is it possible he was trying to circle the globe and get where he’s going from the other side (say to avoid his landlord, or a pesty neighbor, or an ex-wife, or a mob boss he was supposed to throw a fight for but didn’t and now her remembered that he forgot something in his house and he has to get it before he ditches town)? well, his chances of pinpointing the exact location WITHOUT LOOKING WHERE THE FUCK HE’S GOING ARE AS CLOSE TO ZERO AS MAKES NO SENSE!

ok, let’s say, for argument’s sake, that he’s the world’s most astonishing navigator. francis fucking drake. what are the odds he won’t get run over by a passing horse and buggy, a straying flying dutchman or a suburban security mom recklessly careening down the highway with her twin baby carriage? out of sheer surprise, half the drivers going down that road seemed to swerve just a little bit in his direction, probably just to get a closer look or change hands on their hands-on cellphones. or both.

his odds of survival are nil.

wherever his cupboard may be, he probably has a space all cleared out for the darwin award he’s gonna be getting soon.

but the most frightening thought is – what if by some freaky misbehaviour of the time-space continuum and the re-shuffling of our deck of cards he actually makes it??!! fame, fortune and a harem of gorgeous girls to procreate with are sure to follow, thus embedding his gene pool deep in humanity’s womb. 200 years from now we’ll all be walking backwards, more than likely back to the sea where we came from, racing the crustaceans along the way. except that they were smart enough to evolve in non-linearity and by now have fully developed their romantic sideways stroll along the beach.

have we all come too far, too fast, too soon?