Dear Dr. Synek,
Sometimes I like to walk in the cemetery at night. It's so quiet there and I can really get in touch with myself. Until several weeks ago I had never seen another soul amongst the headstones and monuments illuminated only by moonlight or the reflected lights of the city. That night I saw her wandering almost aimlessly among them like a ghost.
When she saw me she turned and came towards me with sudden purpose and I felt a sudden thrill in my heart. It was love at first sight. She was clad in a long flowing light gray robe made of material so flimsy that it was almost transparent. We talked for nearly an hour, sitting on a marble bench provided for graveside visitors.
When I got home that night, the memory of my encounter vague, yet poignant in my mind, I discovered two small puncture wounds on my neck. I didn't remember where they came from. In the morning they had faded to almost nothing, so I soon forgot about them. I couldn't remember what we talked about sitting on that bench, but I remembered the details of her appearance. She was beautiful: nearly white skin, long dark hair, piercing dark eyes, and under her flowing robe a slim muscular body. I longed to see her again.
As the sun went down, after an intolerably long day spent thinking about her, I left my apartment and headed for the cemetery, a mile away. I sat on the bench where we had talked and waited for over an hour for her to magically appear. Then I strolled among the monuments for nearly two hours and spent another hour on or near the bench. She never showed and I was heartbroken as I started home.
The same thing happened for the next three evenings. On the forth I found her as I approached my apartment building, stepping out from behind a bush in its front yard. I nearly had a heart attack when she suddenly appeared.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I've seen you waiting for me each night since we met, but I was afraid to approach you."
"Why?" I asked as I took her in my arms. "What were you afraid of?"
"I was afraid that I want more from you than the mere sustenance that I drew from you when we were together the other night. My kind, we take what we need from people and then leave them alone. We don't have relationships with people. We don't care about people. We only care about what they can give us.
"When I saw you near my home as I emerged the other night, I thought it would be fun to be with you for a while. That was all. When we parted I thought I had obliterated myself from you memory. When I saw you there the next night, I realized that I had failed because I did not want you to forget me. I had formed an attachment for you.
"I tried to destroy my feelings for you by over indulging in others of your kind, to hate them as I took from them. But my attachment for you has grown stronger with each attempt to diminish it."
Well, after that we began getting together almost every day. You know how it is when two people are in love: they can't get enough of each other. Sometimes we were at my apartment. Sometimes we were at her place getting as much of each other as we could. I preferred my place because it is warm and the bed is soft and wide. She preferred her place because, in her words, "it is where I was born and have always lived." But we compromised and agreed to equally split our nights together between the two homes.
Next month we are planning on formalizing our relationship in marriage. This brings me to why I am writing you this letter: where do we live after we've tied the knot? Do we move into my place with what she refers to as, "the stink of too much humanity," or do we move into her damp, cold and cramped quarters?
Signed,
Confused
When she saw me she turned and came towards me with sudden purpose and I felt a sudden thrill in my heart. It was love at first sight. She was clad in a long flowing light gray robe made of material so flimsy that it was almost transparent. We talked for nearly an hour, sitting on a marble bench provided for graveside visitors.
When I got home that night, the memory of my encounter vague, yet poignant in my mind, I discovered two small puncture wounds on my neck. I didn't remember where they came from. In the morning they had faded to almost nothing, so I soon forgot about them. I couldn't remember what we talked about sitting on that bench, but I remembered the details of her appearance. She was beautiful: nearly white skin, long dark hair, piercing dark eyes, and under her flowing robe a slim muscular body. I longed to see her again.
As the sun went down, after an intolerably long day spent thinking about her, I left my apartment and headed for the cemetery, a mile away. I sat on the bench where we had talked and waited for over an hour for her to magically appear. Then I strolled among the monuments for nearly two hours and spent another hour on or near the bench. She never showed and I was heartbroken as I started home.
The same thing happened for the next three evenings. On the forth I found her as I approached my apartment building, stepping out from behind a bush in its front yard. I nearly had a heart attack when she suddenly appeared.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I've seen you waiting for me each night since we met, but I was afraid to approach you."
"Why?" I asked as I took her in my arms. "What were you afraid of?"
"I was afraid that I want more from you than the mere sustenance that I drew from you when we were together the other night. My kind, we take what we need from people and then leave them alone. We don't have relationships with people. We don't care about people. We only care about what they can give us.
"When I saw you near my home as I emerged the other night, I thought it would be fun to be with you for a while. That was all. When we parted I thought I had obliterated myself from you memory. When I saw you there the next night, I realized that I had failed because I did not want you to forget me. I had formed an attachment for you.
"I tried to destroy my feelings for you by over indulging in others of your kind, to hate them as I took from them. But my attachment for you has grown stronger with each attempt to diminish it."
Well, after that we began getting together almost every day. You know how it is when two people are in love: they can't get enough of each other. Sometimes we were at my apartment. Sometimes we were at her place getting as much of each other as we could. I preferred my place because it is warm and the bed is soft and wide. She preferred her place because, in her words, "it is where I was born and have always lived." But we compromised and agreed to equally split our nights together between the two homes.
Next month we are planning on formalizing our relationship in marriage. This brings me to why I am writing you this letter: where do we live after we've tied the knot? Do we move into my place with what she refers to as, "the stink of too much humanity," or do we move into her damp, cold and cramped quarters?
Signed,
Confused
Dear Confused,
In the beginning of a relationship when people from diverse backgrounds get romantically involved the little differences between them are a source of pleasure. Her sharp teeth are cute, his mortality is endearing. He's excited by her strength hidden within a willowy body. She finds his vulnerability to physical harm a sobering influence on the intoxicating effects of the violence in her world. Her violent nature lends him strength. His mortality lends her wisdom.
But if the relationship goes sour, and it likely will, their differences take on a different flavor. Her sharp teeth are a threat to him and a reason to avoid her. His mortality is hateful and a reason to attack. His thoughts turn to wooden stakes, crosses and holy water. Her thoughts turn to his blood.
That's why it's so important to carefully choose where you two will live after the nuptials. I suggest that you find an older house with a basement that she can decorate as a mausoleum to suit her taste and a warm, well lighted room in an attic that you can decorate to reflect the stink of too much humanity. These two rooms will be a place of refuge in time of storm for each of you to go to by yourselves. The rest of the house can be a kind of mental-neutral zone containing a mixture of things that she likes, things that you like and things that you both like (dare I hope for a preponderance of the third). Dark curtains that keep out the sunlight will be a necessity for her. For you, I think, some bright colors to help encourage in you a cheerful mood.
Make sure that the place has two bedrooms so you two can continue alternating your sleeping arrangements.
Set some ground rules for your marriage. When you hit a rough spot in the relationship agree that you will each retire to your respective private spaces where you both feel safe and secure. Some garlic, a supply of crosses, and some holy water will help you feel secure, so keep them handy. I'm sure that her kind has ways of deterring the attack of humankind that she can avail herself of.
Find someone who can moderate any disputes between you (find a wizard, if such people still exist) and agree that there will be no biting or staking at any time. Perhaps you should draw up an agreement and both sign it in blood. Don't involve any lawyers, please.
I could write a book, but I think I'll leave it at what I've said already.
Of course, I think you're doomed. Good luck, anyway.
Best regards,
Dr. Synek
But if the relationship goes sour, and it likely will, their differences take on a different flavor. Her sharp teeth are a threat to him and a reason to avoid her. His mortality is hateful and a reason to attack. His thoughts turn to wooden stakes, crosses and holy water. Her thoughts turn to his blood.
That's why it's so important to carefully choose where you two will live after the nuptials. I suggest that you find an older house with a basement that she can decorate as a mausoleum to suit her taste and a warm, well lighted room in an attic that you can decorate to reflect the stink of too much humanity. These two rooms will be a place of refuge in time of storm for each of you to go to by yourselves. The rest of the house can be a kind of mental-neutral zone containing a mixture of things that she likes, things that you like and things that you both like (dare I hope for a preponderance of the third). Dark curtains that keep out the sunlight will be a necessity for her. For you, I think, some bright colors to help encourage in you a cheerful mood.
Make sure that the place has two bedrooms so you two can continue alternating your sleeping arrangements.
Set some ground rules for your marriage. When you hit a rough spot in the relationship agree that you will each retire to your respective private spaces where you both feel safe and secure. Some garlic, a supply of crosses, and some holy water will help you feel secure, so keep them handy. I'm sure that her kind has ways of deterring the attack of humankind that she can avail herself of.
Find someone who can moderate any disputes between you (find a wizard, if such people still exist) and agree that there will be no biting or staking at any time. Perhaps you should draw up an agreement and both sign it in blood. Don't involve any lawyers, please.
I could write a book, but I think I'll leave it at what I've said already.
Of course, I think you're doomed. Good luck, anyway.
Best regards,
Dr. Synek
Dear Dr. Synek,
For many years now I have worked for an organization which has no official name. To those of us who are in it, it is known as, "The Firm." The Firm's main duty is to obtain information on the enemies of our planet. This information is relayed to another organization with no name through a series of what we call, "dead drops." We call this organization, "The Agency." We think this group's main function is to validate and analyze the information that we (and perhaps other unnamed groups) have passed on to them. Of course, they may only collate and pass on the information that we and others pass along to them. There's no way to know for certain.
When I had worked for about three years for The Firm, I was contacted by someone who claimed to be a member of an organization that worked in blind parallel to us and which also called itself, "The Firm." She said that her function was to help coordinate the efforts of our two organizations. "But knowledge of the link between the two groups," she said, "would jeopardize the operation of both. There might be agents of the enemy in your group or my group. They would tell their masters in the enemy intelligence services of such a link and that knowledge would be used against us. This link must remain a secret at all costs. Do not tell anyone, including you superiors, or my contact with you. Just pass on the information I give you as if you had discovered it yourself, independently.
"There must be someone in your organization that, like me, is responsible for telling someone in my organization the things it needs to know." I had already worked that out on my own. "So there is no need to gather information for me." As proof of her authority she showed me documents signed by the Secretary for Security (a signature well known to all of us in The Firm) saying that the bearer of the documents was authorized to do just what she said she was doing. How she knew who I was or that she could approach me in this way remained a mystery to me. Although I was suspicious I agreed to do what she asked, hoping that if she was an enemy agent I could detect it.
Over the next few months I took the information she gave me and rediscovered it in the data gathered by my organization. It was easy to find what she gave me, given that I already knew what I was looking for. It would have been difficult for someone not forewarned. Let me give you an example: I detected the existence of an enemy battle cruiser in synchronous orbit to my planet on the opposite side of our sun by slightly anomalous gravitational effects on the light coming from distant stars in direction. The cruiser was only there for less a full rotation of our planet. I planned my detection of the event for days beforehand and made it look accidental by setting up an experiment that just happened to coincide with the cruisers sojourn in our planetary system.
Then one day I was approached by a man who said he was in an oversight organization responsible for our planet's counterintelligence service. To prove his bona fides he had me meet him in the Planetary Legislative Complex and introduced me to a well-known legislative representative who assured me that my new contact was who he said he was.
My new contact then told me that the supposed liaison agent from the other "Firm" was actually an agent of an enemy organization. He said that I had unwittingly become a double agent furthering the interests of the enemy by spreading disinformation. "That enemy battle cruiser you discovered," he said, "was actually one of our secret stealth vessels on a mission, which had to be cancelled because of your discovery."
"I was afraid of this," I said. I was becoming alarmed. "She had authorizations signed by high government officials…but I suppose those were forged."
"On the contrary," he responded, "they were authentic. She has penetrated our intelligence services very deeply, indeed."
"If she has penetrated us so deeply, why did she use me? I'm just a low level operative."
"Because she needs to plant her disinformation at a level where raw intelligence originates, with the Firms," he responded.
After hours of debriefing, I agreed to work from then on under his direction. Whatever information she gave me I would pass along to him so that the Agencies would be able to filter data coming from my Firm. I was not, of course, to give her any indication of my new involvement.
This went on for about a year. Then early one morning at about three I was awakened from a sound sleep by a rough shake and a harsh voice.
"What do you think you are doing?" the voice shouted. "You are endangering the entire future of the planet." The voice was coming from a man (judging from the sound of the voice) attired in a black ski mask, black sweater, black trousers and black shoes standing in my bedroom at home.
He wrenched me out of my bed and slapped me across the face with a hand wearing a black leather glove. Holding me by the front of my pajamas he slapped me again and said, "The man you are working for is one of the most dangerous enemy agents, alive."
After this outburst he calmed down a bit and explained how the first agent, the female liaison, had been genuine and that the agent claiming that the liaison agent was an enemy agent was, in fact, an enemy agent. To back up his claim, and in addition to a stack of signed documents which I read and he burned, he took me to the office of the Chief Secretary of the Planetary Council. I actually shook hands with the Woman Herself. She told me to trust everything my companion told me and the deal was sealed then and there.
Working for my new handler I took what the liaison agent gave me and he decided what I was to pass on to the enemy agent and what I was to pass on to my Firm. It's all rather convoluted, but you get the idea. In another few months I was confronted by another agent who turned everything upside down again. And so it goes. Every few months I'm contacted by a new person. Every few months I change sides. I don't even know how many times this has happened.
I don't know who I am anymore. Am I one of the heroes protecting our planet or one of the enemy's agents? Who am I, anyway?
Signed,
Confused
When I had worked for about three years for The Firm, I was contacted by someone who claimed to be a member of an organization that worked in blind parallel to us and which also called itself, "The Firm." She said that her function was to help coordinate the efforts of our two organizations. "But knowledge of the link between the two groups," she said, "would jeopardize the operation of both. There might be agents of the enemy in your group or my group. They would tell their masters in the enemy intelligence services of such a link and that knowledge would be used against us. This link must remain a secret at all costs. Do not tell anyone, including you superiors, or my contact with you. Just pass on the information I give you as if you had discovered it yourself, independently.
"There must be someone in your organization that, like me, is responsible for telling someone in my organization the things it needs to know." I had already worked that out on my own. "So there is no need to gather information for me." As proof of her authority she showed me documents signed by the Secretary for Security (a signature well known to all of us in The Firm) saying that the bearer of the documents was authorized to do just what she said she was doing. How she knew who I was or that she could approach me in this way remained a mystery to me. Although I was suspicious I agreed to do what she asked, hoping that if she was an enemy agent I could detect it.
Over the next few months I took the information she gave me and rediscovered it in the data gathered by my organization. It was easy to find what she gave me, given that I already knew what I was looking for. It would have been difficult for someone not forewarned. Let me give you an example: I detected the existence of an enemy battle cruiser in synchronous orbit to my planet on the opposite side of our sun by slightly anomalous gravitational effects on the light coming from distant stars in direction. The cruiser was only there for less a full rotation of our planet. I planned my detection of the event for days beforehand and made it look accidental by setting up an experiment that just happened to coincide with the cruisers sojourn in our planetary system.
Then one day I was approached by a man who said he was in an oversight organization responsible for our planet's counterintelligence service. To prove his bona fides he had me meet him in the Planetary Legislative Complex and introduced me to a well-known legislative representative who assured me that my new contact was who he said he was.
My new contact then told me that the supposed liaison agent from the other "Firm" was actually an agent of an enemy organization. He said that I had unwittingly become a double agent furthering the interests of the enemy by spreading disinformation. "That enemy battle cruiser you discovered," he said, "was actually one of our secret stealth vessels on a mission, which had to be cancelled because of your discovery."
"I was afraid of this," I said. I was becoming alarmed. "She had authorizations signed by high government officials…but I suppose those were forged."
"On the contrary," he responded, "they were authentic. She has penetrated our intelligence services very deeply, indeed."
"If she has penetrated us so deeply, why did she use me? I'm just a low level operative."
"Because she needs to plant her disinformation at a level where raw intelligence originates, with the Firms," he responded.
After hours of debriefing, I agreed to work from then on under his direction. Whatever information she gave me I would pass along to him so that the Agencies would be able to filter data coming from my Firm. I was not, of course, to give her any indication of my new involvement.
This went on for about a year. Then early one morning at about three I was awakened from a sound sleep by a rough shake and a harsh voice.
"What do you think you are doing?" the voice shouted. "You are endangering the entire future of the planet." The voice was coming from a man (judging from the sound of the voice) attired in a black ski mask, black sweater, black trousers and black shoes standing in my bedroom at home.
He wrenched me out of my bed and slapped me across the face with a hand wearing a black leather glove. Holding me by the front of my pajamas he slapped me again and said, "The man you are working for is one of the most dangerous enemy agents, alive."
After this outburst he calmed down a bit and explained how the first agent, the female liaison, had been genuine and that the agent claiming that the liaison agent was an enemy agent was, in fact, an enemy agent. To back up his claim, and in addition to a stack of signed documents which I read and he burned, he took me to the office of the Chief Secretary of the Planetary Council. I actually shook hands with the Woman Herself. She told me to trust everything my companion told me and the deal was sealed then and there.
Working for my new handler I took what the liaison agent gave me and he decided what I was to pass on to the enemy agent and what I was to pass on to my Firm. It's all rather convoluted, but you get the idea. In another few months I was confronted by another agent who turned everything upside down again. And so it goes. Every few months I'm contacted by a new person. Every few months I change sides. I don't even know how many times this has happened.
I don't know who I am anymore. Am I one of the heroes protecting our planet or one of the enemy's agents? Who am I, anyway?
Signed,
Confused
Dear Confused,
Many of us are plagued by self-doubt and continually ask ourselves, "Who am I and what am I doing here?" The answer is simple, though often difficult to implement: just be yourself. Just be true to yourself and all else will follow.
Best regards,
Dr. Synek
Best regards,
Dr. Synek
Dear Dr. Synek,
I'm a computer specialist, particularly working in programming computer applications that make use of API's that exist for corporate software. You can imagine the strain I'm under.
Last week I was given the assignment of writing a communication utility between our corporate database and the Marketing Department's content management system. My first effort was geared toward establishing a common protocol on both sides of the link. Once this is established I can begin to design the architecture of the data packets that will be transported back and forth over the communication link.
My question is: should I use an Organic Simulator language like QSmart or one of the new Mechanistic Automation languages like PLOD to write the interface?
Signed,
Confused
Last week I was given the assignment of writing a communication utility between our corporate database and the Marketing Department's content management system. My first effort was geared toward establishing a common protocol on both sides of the link. Once this is established I can begin to design the architecture of the data packets that will be transported back and forth over the communication link.
My question is: should I use an Organic Simulator language like QSmart or one of the new Mechanistic Automation languages like PLOD to write the interface?
Signed,
Confused
Dear Confused,
I'm glad you made your letter short. Trying to read it was beginning to make my head hurt. I'm also glad that you submitted it to me in electronic form so that no one had to hurt their head entering it into the publishing system.
Best Regards,
Dr. Synek
Best Regards,
Dr. Synek