On The Run (standard:fantasy, 10894 words)
Author: Rattan Mann	Added: Aug 19 2009	Views/Reads: 3284/2287	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
I think the imagination in the story will become reality within 100 years

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


So he entered into secret negotiations with the captain of a cargo ship,
and paid him a huge sum not for being smuggled into the United States 
but for being smuggled out of the European Union. 

As the ship sighted American shores, Prof.Dr.Mann emerged out of his
hiding.  He was in bad shape.  He had had nothing to eat or drink for 
days.  He was dehydrated and delusional.  But he was in very high 
spirits because now he had nothing to fear.  He had a valid immigration 
visa and nobody could deny him entry into USA - not even MI5 or 
Homeland Security. 

Unfortunately and typical of him, he got a little too excited.  He
leaned over the railings to get a better glimpse of the Statue of 
Liberty but lost his balance and fell into the sea.  With great 
difficulty he was rescued but he lost all his money and passport.  From 
a legal immigrant he  immediately metamorphosed into an illegal alien - 
a boatman without hope or identity.  The sudden metamorphosis looked so 
surrealistic that somewhere, somehow MI5 must have been involved in 
this surrealistically unfortunate change of fortune. 

But fortune really took a big U turn again. 

The immigration officer who spotted Prof.Dr.Mann stealing into USA was a
huge, towering lady six feet two inches tall - not too different from 
the Statue of Liberty herself.  She was to retire the next day, and so 
she wanted to make a final contribution to her conviction that USA 
belonged to and only to the poor, the hungry, the naked, and the 
tempest-drenched rabble.  Nobody fitted that description that day 
better than Prof.Dr.Mann so she simply let him go without as much as 
asking for his passport.  His condition was his identity as well as his 
future potential. 

Everybody in the Immigration Office lauded the old lady for her wisdom
and foresight and welcomed Prof.Dr.Mann to America with open arms.  But 
Prof.Dr.Mann was a fortune-teller, and there and then he saw his own 
future in a crystal-ball suspended right in the middle of the 
immigration office. 

He saw himself falling into a trap.  A new generation of the powerfull
anti-immigration lobby in the Homeland Security had surrounded him.  In 
the crystal-ball he was bearded, wore a turban, and looked very 
suspicious, and the anti-immigration lobby was laughing and discussing 
his fate right before him. They were just waiting for the noble Lady 
Liberty to retire because they wanted to hide from her the bitter truth 
that all her life-work was in vain - America had no place for 
suspicious-looking guys like Prof.Dr.Mann anymore.  That would have 
broken Lady Liberty's heart.  But as soon as she was out of the way, 
playing with her grandchildren on a remote ranch, they would reverse 
her decision, rescind his rights to stay in USA, and arrest him, and 
send him to a far-flung prison on high seas as a very disturbed product 
of a very disturbed age. 

Then the crystal-ball became a huge shiny balloon and engulfed him, and
the shiny balloon metamorphosed into a dark metal-prison and entrapped 
him forever. 

Prof.Dr.Mann had seen more than enough because, like Nostradamus, he had
seen the future.  Now it was time to act which Nostradamus never did.  
So within seconds, he changed his plans and thus changed history. 

Instead of stepping on the US soil, he stole to the bathroom, shaved his
tell-tale beard, flushed his tell-tale turban down the drain, changed 
into woman's clothes, and set in touch with the ship's captain, begging 
him to smuggle him back to Norway by the same ship.  Again he agreed to 
pay a huge amount for this smuggling operation. 

The ship captain was only too happy to oblige.  He was paid twice for
something which was not at all illegal. 

To give Prof.Dr.Mann the full worth of his money, the captain ordered
him to strip naked, gave him twenty lashes to make him look like a 
perfect victim of immigration police brutality, and ordered him to 
reach the ship by swimming underwater to avoid detection by coastal 
guards.  Then he forced him to use a rope rather than the gate to get 
on board. 

All the immigration officers, coastal guards, and Homeland Security
watched this strange drama with great consternation.  Prof.Dr.Mann had 
indeed broken Lady Liberty's heart.  She couldn't make head or tail of 
this lunacy.  Her retired life would always be marred by the memory of 
this last working day and her rejected tribute to a suspicious-looking 
guy.  But she was helpless to do anything.  Even after being welcomed 
into the US , a man had a right to go home, and that too the way he 
chose - by swimming underwater, climbing a rope, dangling naked from a 
helicopter, or whatever.  Without a formal complaint, she couldn't even 
punish the captain for whipping a gentleman. 

And that is how Prof.Dr.Mann arranged his world-shaking escape from USA,
right under the nose of the mighty Homeland Security. 

As soon as bleeding Prof.Dr.Mann was bloody safe and sound in his
food-container, he started dashing letters to Lady Liberty pleading to 
her to escape from the US like him and join him in Norway so that they 
both could live together happily after.  Then he slipped those letters 
out of the cracks in the food-container in the happy belief that the 
captain would pick them immediately and pass them on to the next 
captain heading towards the US.  Prof.Dr.Mann was in the grip of his 
first-ever feelings of love. 

At the Norwegian end, this inspiring saga of the war between Truth and
Falsehood had to be as melodramatic as at the American end, if not 
more. 

Both Prof.Dr.Mann and the ship captain were of Indian origin and both
had suffered racial discrimination and abuse at the hands of the 
Norwegians countless times.  So it was time to take a sweet and 
long-overdue revenge. 

As the ship approached the Oslo harbour, the captain suddenly changed
direction and started heading back as if he was running away in fear.  
After half an hour, he again changed direction and started approaching 
the harbour at full speed as if he was going to attack it.  Then at 
half way he suddenly switched off the engine and the ship came to a 
virtual standstill on high waters.  And so it stayed till dark. 

Panic broke out at the Oslo harbour.  The Norwegian army was put on red
alert.  An army division was dispatched to the harbour, and within 
hours the harbour turned into a military fortress.  Yet nobody could do 
anything to the ship or it captain.  The captain had indeed acted very 
suspiciously but not illegally - to switch off a ship's engine is not 
illegal.  So nobody could do a fig to him. 

As soon as it was dark, the door of a food-container was smashed open,
and a naked man with blood all over his body jumped out and started 
running and jumping all over the deck.  He was no other than 
everybody's friend, Prof.Dr.Mann, bleeding from the lashes he had 
received in America at the hands of the captain himself.  He was 
screaming, 

"  Help, help, I am bleeding to death.  I am a victim of terror and
tyranny at the hands of monstrous dictators and blood-thirsty tyrants.  
Help me, give me shelter, oh good guys of the civilized world." 

The ship captain was running after him.  He too was screaming, 

"Prof.Dr.Mann, please come back, come back at once.  There you were a
victim of terror and tyranny for three months.  Here you will remain a 
victim of racism and hatred for life.  Tyrants have been overthrown a 
thousand times over.  Racism and hatred has yet to be overthrown even 
once.  Norway is the most racist country on earth so keep away from it, 
please.  It treats immigrants like lepers and have created a special 
leper-colony for them like the leper-colony in Ben Hur.  It is called 
Gronland.  This is not the civilization you are looking for.  We both 
are ship-wrecked sailors.  We are lost on the high seas, we will be far 
far away from true civilization for a long long time to come." 

Prof.Dr.Mann paid no attention to the captain and jumped into the sea. 

That was the moment the Norwegian army was waiting for.  Dozens of
gun-boats armed with search-lights sped towards the ship and 
immediately arrested both Prof.Dr.Mann and the captain. 

But within minutes all those heavily armed commandos looked like fools. 
As soon as they found out that Prof.Dr.Mann was a Norwegian citizen, 
they had to release him as well as the captain.  It was not illegal to 
enter ones own country by jumping into the sea and swimming to the 
shore.  Though very unfortunate and undesirable, it was also not 
illegal to call Norway the most racist country on earth.  So the 
soldiers had no legal basis for detaining the two fighters against 
injustice. 

Prof.Dr.Mann and the captain saluted each other, raised their first
fingers at the Norwegian commandos, and went their different ways never 
to meet again. 

Thus ended the tale of two non-violent Gandhians who managed to hit back
at least once the people who had been hitting them for ages. 

Prof.Dr.Mann had hardly shaken MI5 and Homeland Security off his back
when the Italian mafia pounced on him and unfortunate Prof.Dr.Mann was 
once more on the run from the forces of evil. 

One hot summer afternoon, he was having beer at an Italian restaurant in
Oslo.  Suddenly there was great commotion on the street.  Like 
everybody else, he rushed out to see what the matter was. 

A young and beautiful lady had apparently fainted from the intense heat
and was lying unconscious on the road.  Prof.Dr.Mann - the knight in 
white armour that he always was - rushed home to get his first-aid kit. 
 But by the time he returned, the beautiful lady had apparently 
recovered and walked away.  This threw him into a pit of depression.  
He couldn't bear his impotency to satisfy a damsel in need.  So every 
lady's lover, Prof.Dr. Mann forgot all about the unfinished and unpaid 
beer and returned home in a dejected and sucidal state. 

Next morning he remembered the beer he had not finished or paid for.  He
wanted to rush to the restaurant, apologize to the owner, and finish 
the job there and then.  But unfortunately it was all too late now.  
There and then Prof.Dr.Mann became convinced that the owner had already 
contacted the mafia, and the mafia was now looking for him everywhere 
to settle old scores and teach him a lesson for cheating and 
double-crossing their compatriot in the vicinity, though not actual 
presence, of a beautiful, though unconscious, lady. 

Ever since then, Prof.Dr. Mann avoided all streets which had an Italian
restaurant on them which meant practically the whole of Oslo.  Often he 
came out of his one-room flat dressed as a woman to avoid being 
recognized by his Italian neighbours and then betrayed to the mafia. 

He had also deviced the perfect escape plan. 

As soon as the mafia knocked at his door a pre-recorded message would
start playing: 

"Most honourable guests, you are most welcomed.  I am Prof.Dr. Mann's
automated PA.  Please come in and wait in the drawing room.  Dr.Mann is 
in the toilet and takes exactly 27 minutes to come out...now your 
waiting period is just 26 minutes...25...." 

Half-an-hour's lead was more than enough to escape by the back door and
lie low in some public lavotary till the mafia left after turning his 
house upside-down. 

Then one unfortunate day, unfortunate Prof.Dr.Mann had the most
unfortunate panic attack – just when he was beginning to get an upper 
hand over the forces of evil which were out there to destroy him. 

One very normal evening of a very normal day, Prof.Dr.Mann had a very
normal dinner, and retired to bed in a very normal way.  But as he was 
about to lie down, a very abnormal thought crossed his mind. 

He cursed the King of Norway and wished him a very painful death because
the King had not responded to the Open Letter he had written to him 
exactly 4 years, 7 months, and 12 days ago. 

It was a completely unplanned and random thought.  It was not even put
into words.  Even if it had, there were no witnesses, and his bedroom 
was not bugged.  So under normal circumstances the abnormal thought 
should have been forgotten the next moment. 

But Prof.Dr.Rattan Mann was anything but a Normal Mann, and every
circumstance around him was the most abnormal one.  So instead of 
dying, this abnormal thought gave birth to a second abnormal thought - 
in fact, the most abnormal thought that has ever crossed the human mind 
- past, present, and future. 

There and then Prof.Dr.Mann became utterly convinced that his thought
has been transmitted live – in real time - to the secret police, and 
now he would be in great trouble because the police knew that he had 
cursed the King of Norway. 

This single abnormal thought changed Prof.Dr.Mann's life, his perception
of reality, and even the world around him.  Things that had been an 
enigma to him since a long time became crystal-clear. 

A casual thought had woken Prof.Dr.Mann out of his long slumber, and
like Kant and Hegal, forced him to re-interpret the world around him 
and re-examine the past and the future in a new light. 

Now thoughts started gushing into his brain like water from a burst dam.
 He lost control over them.  They were so jumbled up that he could not 
understand them or see any pattern in them.  But that was a great hope. 
 If he could not understand his own thoughts, then the police which was 
receiving them live - in real time - won't understand them either, and 
he won't be able to get into more trouble than he already was in.  Even 
his arrest might be postponed for a while and give him enough time to 
escape. 

Slowly he began to go through every event in his life and the life of
others around him - in fact, he began to go through every event in 
history and see it in a new light.  His would be the greatest 
reinterpretation of history and enunciation of the future since Marx, 
Kant, and Hegel. 

The first event he remembered was a dream he had had sometime back. 

In the dream, he was dozing in his office when one of his colleagues
stole in very quietly and began to examine his head.  He tapped his 
skull several times.  Suddenly, he pulled out a lock of hair and ran 
away with it, leaving him squirming with pain. 

Now Prof.Dr.Mann knew that it was not a dream at all but a real
incident, and the colleague had not pulled out a lock of hair, but 
implanted a bugging device - the Thought And Dream Transmitter - into 
his head which was capable of transmitting his thoughts and dreams live 
to the Police Thought And Dream Receiver at a secret location. 

That made perfect sense and explained a lot of other strange events that
were worrying him for a long time. 

He remembered a very timid, docile, and apolitical friend of his, Dr.
Usha Singh, who was always so engrossed in her medical research that 
she did not even know the names of the Norwegian or Indian prime 
ministers. 

One morning she was suddenly fired from her job without any explanation.
She got such a shock that by afternoon she committed sucide. 

Now Prof.Dr.Mann knew the reason.  This poor girl by chance had a wrong
dream in the night because dreams are beyond one's control.  The dream 
was transmitted live to the Police Dream Receiver, and the next morning 
the poor creature lost both her job and life. 

A similar, though not so tragic, incident had happened to Prof.Dr.Mann
himself. 

One morning, as he entered his office and put his bag on his table, one
of his former students rushed in like a silent breeze, whispered in his 
ears, "Sir, you have been black-listed!" and before Prof.Dr.Mann could 
see his face, he disappeared like a ghost. 

That didn't make sense.  Since ages Prof.Dr.Mann had stopped all
political activities, stopped abusing politicians, and had made peace 
with all his colleagues.  There was no reason to black-list him now.  
In fact, just a few months ago the head of Oslo Police had told him 
personally in a cocktail party that he had been removed from the black 
list for becoming a “good boy”, and handed him a list of Top 100 
Black-listed Dreams which he was not suppose to dream if he wanted to 
remain off the black-list.  He had lost the list so he did not know 
what those dreams were. 

But now he knew at least one of them. 

He remembered that on the night previous to this episode he had had
another of his strange dreams.  He dreamed that he had thrashed the 
justice minister for extending private protection to racism and racists 
in high places in Norway. 

Probably Dr. Usha Singh had dreamed that she killed the justice minister
for abusing her.  Therefore, she had to pay for her dream with her job 
and life instead of getting away just with a last warning. 

What a just and beautiful world, he thought in order to hide his real
thoughts from the police. 

A weird thought, or a kaleidoscopic dream in the night, and a
crystal-clear message from the police before dawn - a pattern was 
emerging and the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. 

Prof.Dr.Mann had once more begun to understand his thoughts and the
world around him.  And therein lay the danger!  If he was understanding 
his thoughts, the Police Receiver receiving them live must be 
understanding them too.  And very soon they will send a clear message 
that they understood.  He had very little time left to accomplish 
anything.  What Kant took sixty years to do he will have to do in a 
day. 

What a paradise I am living in, a paradise which even poor Socrates
could not imagine with all his wisdom and foresight, he thought again 
to confuse the Police Receiver for a while and use that time-slot of 
Receiver Confusion to think real thoughts. 

Prof.Dr.Mann was faced with one of the greatest challenge man had ever
faced - past, present, or future.  The answer to that challenge would 
change the topography of Man himself. 

Either he had to device a method by which he could prevent thoughts from
entering the brain.  For example, they could be made to hover in 
mid-air, in a ring round the head.  He should be able to understand and 
interact with them, but the Police Thought Receiver should not be able 
to receive them live because they were outside his skull and out of 
reach of the Thought Transmitter. 

Or he had to prevent the Transmitter from transmitting them live, say by
hiding in an underground bunker with concrete walls thick enough to 
block the transmission. 

The first possibility was beyond present day science, though Prof.Dr.
Mann himself was working franatically on it.  In fact, he had already 
devised a rare-metal ball the shape and size of his head, and a laser 
Thought-Pump which could pump his forbidden thoughts into the 
rare-metal ball.  This Thought-Ball could then be buried underground 
somewhere out of reach of the Thought Police.  Unfortunately and as 
always, the forces of Darkness were preventing his apparatus from 
working properly. 

But the second possibility of underground bunkers was another matter. 
Bunkers lay scattered everywhere, just to be picked.  Mother Earth was 
disfigured with underground bunkers dug everywhere in Norway as a 
tribute to human stupidity called the Cold War. 

But before reaching these safe havens for thoughts, Prof.Dr.Mann had to
suspend his own thoughts in mid-air otherwise the police will know 
where he was heading.  Here his knowledge of the Tebetian Book of the 
Dead was a great help. 

He took a deep breathe,  and directed all his power and energy to his
brain. This focused laser-like beam of energy evaporated all thoughts 
from his head – his head became empty of thoughts.  The transmission 
from the Transmitter became white noise and fooled the police into 
believing that Prof.Dr.Mann was having a thoughtless and dreamless 
sleep. 

Having put the police off his trail, Prof.Dr.Mann grabbed a few things
lying before him and was on the run once more - this time looking for a 
place where not he but his thoughts could be hidden safely.  He took 
the Thought Ball and the Thought Pump with him, hoping against hope 
that this time he might succeed in transferring his thoughts to the 
Ball and then hiding the ball at a secret location. 

The nearest underground bunker was many miles away and it was always
locked.  So an alternative had to be found fast.  There was an 
alternative,  The next best thing to a bunker is a sewer.  Thick lead 
pipes and the concrete roads over them had the strength to make the 
Transmitter dysfunctional.  The Transmitter was definitely not powerful 
enough to transmit thoughts through meters of thick lead and concrete.  
A sewer was indeed a poor man's bunker, and right now Prof.Dr.Mann was 
the poorest of all his fellowmen. 

Prof.Dr.Mann knew the way to the sewer.  It was his secret hideout from
the MI5, the Homeland Security, and the mafia.  In fact, it was his 
Vigilance HQ from where he kept a close eye on all the covert 
activities of the CIA, FBI, and MI5. 

It was cold, dark, wet, and very noisy down there.  But with great
trouble and perseverance he had discovered a dry black hole big enough 
to accomadate the Anti-MI5 Wing of his Vigilance HQ.  The first thing 
he did in his newly discovered paradise was to fill the walls with big, 
bold letters: 

“Crush Injustice with Justice!”. 

After a long time he had discovered a true paradise on earth where he
could escape from the world and live with his own thoughts and dreams 
for days and weeks.  But soon he discovered that this paradise had its 
snakes too – wild rodents and big rats.  Adam and Eve were never afraid 
of snakes but he was shit scared of rats.  They forced him to abandon 
that very piece of land he had fought so hard to wrench from the grasp 
of a mad world.  The world had indeed gone mad.  Rats had acquired the 
power of God to expel man from paradise at will.  Where else could it 
happen except in a mad world?  It was because of these mighty rodents 
that he had never used his own Anti-HQ as a real hideout.  It became 
his emergency hideout.  And unfortunately, today was such an emergency. 
 To hide oneself from the MI5, Homeland Security, and the mafia, there 
were safer places - like a public lavotary.  But this was one of only 
two places on earth where thoughts could be hidden safely. 

Prof.Dr.Rattan Mann should now have been a Happy Mann.  He had
re-entered Paradise and transformed it into a new Haven for Thoughts.  
The Thought-Transmitter had stopped transmitting them and now he was 
safe and free to think beautiful things. 

But a cloud hung over his thoughts and it wasn't clearing - the sun
wasn't shining even in Paradise.  It was a cloud of fear of the rodents 
and that cloud hid his thoughts even from himself. But think he must, 
and that too very fast.  He could not fake a thoughtless and dreamless 
sleep for ever because sleep is rarely thoughtless and dreamless.  The 
police would see through the ruse if he faked for too long.  He had to 
hurry and kick-start his thinking process.  He did not have the sweet 
luxury of Socrates or the reclusive safety of Kant. 

But how? 

His thoughts were presently battling with horrific images of an army of
rodents approaching him...soon they were swarming all over his 
body....eating his flesh...and already portions of his skeleton were 
clearly visible through the clouds.  It was the Battle of Tehran all 
over again.  For a moment he even thought that the rodents were talking 
to him like human beings, warning him that his land was their land and 
his family their slaves. 

Prof.Dr.Mann started shivering and screaming.  He looked around him in
horror.  There were indeed a few huge rats looking at him 
threateningly.  But there was definitely no army of rodents rushing at 
him , at least not yet, because words had not gone around that 
Prof.Dr.Mann had come back to his Vigilance HQ.  Words spread slowly in 
Dante's underworld.  And thank god, none of them could talk like a 
human being. 

Prof.Dr.Mann felt like rushing out of the sewer and surrendering to the
police rathen than the mighty rodents.  The police would only dismiss 
him from his job but the rodents would eat him alive. 

But History stood in the way. History closed his escape route because he
had borrowed so heavily from History and now in conspiracy with 
Shakespeare, History was demanding his pound of flesh.  Prof.Dr. Mann 
was trapped between two God-like powers and that too in Paradise.  Can 
Paradise be so cruel? 

He had no choice but to fight on two fronts – the terror of every Field
Marshal.  He had to dig his heels, control his terror, and hang on for 
a while till he found what he was looking for.  If it got too hot even 
in Paradise he could always exit in disgrace with his head bowed like 
Adam and Eve. 

As soon as Prof.Dr. Mann stopped asking why and was willing to do or
die, a miracle happened in Paradise.  The clouds vanished, Shylock ran 
away without getting even a gram of flesh, and the rats were thrown 
into the water by the Pied Piper.  It looked like Paradise Regained.  
And in this Regained Paradise, he became a bundle of Pure Thought, Pure 
Reason, and Pure Being, utterly fearless and perfectly free to ask the 
greatest question Mankind has ever asked: 

How, when, where, and why the bugging of the human mind started? 

Thoughts were blowing in the wind once more, memories wafting towards
him like sweet and sour scents from a bygone age when the world was not 
so cruel.  They were truly Remembrances of Things Past, coming in bits 
and pieces...a discussion with a colleague here...a fight with a 
minister there...a gnawing pain somewhere... and that ever-elusive joy 
round the next block everywhere.... 

He remembered he had actually seen all this coming. Only his timing was
totally off the mark. 

Dr.Teresa Hawkes, the head of Neurosurgery ward, was rushing out of the
misty memory lane to tell him that she was taking her children to the 
Peking Olympics this August.  He thrust a rod in her excitement and 
hijacked her happiness into the marshy jungles of the future. 

"Teresa, mark my words.  One day they will control us at the very roots
- one day they will be able to know and control our thoughts and dreams 
and happiness and excitement live - in real time.  Just wait and see." 

Dr.Hawkes was jerking in pain with the emotional U turn forced upon her
and she turned on him  like a true lioness protecting her kids from the 
devil, 

"I don't disagree with you in the sense that the technology would exist
in a couple of decades.  But I am dead sure what you are saying would 
never happen.  Woman would not allow it.  There is an intrinsic 
goodness in woman which has always rebelled against such gross 
violations of human rights and human dignity.  Mark my words too.  Now 
you know how Peking can..." 

Prof.Dr.Mann had no interests in Peking except purely Marxist ones and
did not agree with Dr.Hawkes theory of the intrinsic goodness of woman 
or man.  So he interrupted her again. 

" Answer my puzzle otherwise I won't allow you to set foot in China! 
Answer or die at the hands of your own children! 

“Suppose on 8-8-88, exactly eighty years from the Peking Olympics of
8-8-08, there is a massive campaign to implant bugging devices in human 
brains - devices which would be capable of sending human thoughts and 
dreams live - in real time - to the police.  For example, everybody who 
came to attend the opening cermony of the Olympics of 8-8-88 would 
leave with a bugging device in his head without ever knowing or 
suspecting it.  What can you do and what will you do?  Solve this 
riddle before you die?" 

Dr.Hawkes wanted to slap him but remained calm because it was a long
time since she had been really happy and she won't let a Mad Mann ruin 
it for her. 

" Like Kerberos I would be guarding the gates of the Olympics stadium
and wont let anybody escape without an operation.  From that day, 
8-8-88, I will make it my life mission to operate every brain and 
remove the bugging device, even if it means losing my job through 
dismissal, my husband through divorce, my children through the Child 
Welfare Department, and my sanity through you." 

Prof.Dr.Mann jumped up from his seat and screamed a victory-scream, 

"Got you dummy.  You will be dead by then." 

She was indeed gone by then.  She had indeed metamorphosed into a
multi-headed Hydra at Hades guarding the Future from the Past. 

He was left alone in the marshy jungle, or so he thought.  But as usual
he was wrong. 

His arch enemy, Dr.George Orwell, the head of Physiotherapy ward, was
hiding behind a huge oak tree and pounced on him as soon as he was 
alone and defenceless. 

He had overheard his phony riddle and now challenged him  to “The
Genuine Riddle of the Future, by the Future and for the Future”.  Hegal 
stood under a Papal Tree as the judge. 

Dr. Orwell shot his Thesis at Prof.Dr. Mann like an arrow. 

"The Big Brother would always be enough to control man.  His methods of
control – surveillance cameras, and audio recorders - will be 
sufficient for all times to come." 

Prof.Dr. Mann shot back his Anti_Thesis like a cruise missile. 

"The Big Brother is on his way out - he is about to retire.  His methods
of control are old and outdated like himself and soon both would be 
confined to the dustbins of  mausoleums and  museums." 

The battle for “The Heart and Mind of the Future” grew murkier and
lethal Thought-Experiments were deviced  to produce Thought Bombs more 
lethal than atom-bombs. 

Dr.Orwell's Thought-Bomb: 

Supposing a harmless-looking man is standing on Karl Johans Gate.  He is
doing nothing.  Nobody 	suspects him of anything. 

Now suppose he suddenly takes out a bomb from a bag, throws it in the
crowd, kills 20 people, pulls a mask over his head, and disappears.  
After a few minutes he returns to the scene as a spectator, totally 
unsuspected and safe. 

Now you see my point - nobody can catch him except the Big Brother. 
Only the Big Brother knows who he is and what he has done and where he 
had disappeared because He had His surveillance cameras everywhere the 
guy went.  Thus the Big Brother has at his disposal perfect methods of 
control, and nothing more is needed.  Thanks to the Big Brother, the 
man is caught the same day and the riddle solved. 

Prof.Dr.Mann refused to surrender.  He had hid his Thought-Bomb in his
Thought-Ball and took Dr. Orwell utterly by surprise by hurling a 
metal-ball at him which was doing all the thinking and talking. 

The metal ball was providing the counter-argument. 

The Big Brother has solved nothing.  The bomb has been thrown, people
have been killed, and sooner or later, the man would have been caught 
anyway, even without the help of Big Brother and his surveillance 
cameras.  And anyway, catching him isn't much of a consolation to the 
dead. 

Now suppose again that the same harmless-looking man is standing on the
same Karl Johans Gate.  He is doing nothing.  And again, nobody 
suspects him of anything. 

But now suppose there is a surveillance device in his head instead of on
the lamp-post.  This device transmits his thoughts live to the police.  
So the police knows that he would be there at this time already when he 
was at home planning his trip. 

Now suppose at Karl Johans Gate he thinks of his next move.  He plans to
walk to the railway station, put a bomb in a standing train, and then 
quietly disappear. 

Now comes the point of a Thought-Ball.  Even before he starts walking,
the police knows what he intends to do.  So the moment he climbs a 
train to put the bomb, the police grabs him because they were waiting 
for him.  No surveillance camers, audio recorders, or spies and 
informers of any sort were necessary.  There was no role for the Big 
Brother in the whole operation.  Point made.  Theorem proved.  Finito. 

Long live the Thought-Ball.  Prof.Dr. Mann had indeed succeeded in
pumping his thoughts into a Thought-Ball and hiding it from everybody 
till it was needed to pin down his opponents.  The police had no idea 
that he had ever thought such forbidden thoughts powerful enough to 
fell a giant like Dr. George Orwell. 

Hegal had never seen such a debate and he rushed to History to ask who
was the winner.  History took no time in passing the judgement: 

Rumours spread like California fires that Prof.Dr.Mann was not right in
his head.  His only mission in life was to disagree with everybody, and 
say the opposite of what others said.  And Prof.Dr.Mann noticed that 
not so many patients were coming to him anymore.  Sometimes he had 
nothing to do in his office except stare at his colleagues rushing by 
as busily as bees.  Somebody wrote on his door “  Some carry everything 
in their heads.  Others carry everything between their legs.  Prof.Dr. 
Mann carries everything in a Thought-Ball”. 

So Prof.Dr.Rattan Mann became Prof.Dr.Unhappy Mann.  Right now too, as
he sat in his Vigilance HQ in the sewer, he was more of an Unhappy Mann 
than Rattan Mann. 

He was unhappy because his thoughts were not moving in the right
direction.  What he had predicted was wrong.  He was totally wrong when 
he said that live control over human thoughts would not be established 
before 80 years or so.  His so-called future was already a thing of the 
present.  To be off the mark by 80 years is not a mistake, it is not 
even a blunder, it is a downright crime  punishable by death. 

How could he be so wrong?  How, when and where did the future steal upon
the present without his having the faintest idea about it?  That was 
the problem he wanted to get at before the rats got at him, but he was 
nowhere near it. 

He began to go through each event of each day of each nation.  Was there
anything suspicious that had happened in America or England or India or 
anywhere else in recent times? 

So many suspicious things were happening everywhere everyday that he had
set upon himself a hopeless task.  There was no point in proceeding 
further.  He had to stop trying to look for a needle in a haystack and 
look somewhere else. 

He looked around and noticed that he was slowly being surrounded by
rats. He stared at them as they circled round him, closing the circle a 
bit more with every round.  He had lost and they had won.  They would 
eat him before he would be able to answer the only question he so 
desperately wanted to answer - when, where, and how the bugging of the 
human mind started? 

He became emotional.  Tears came to his eyes.  He wondered what was in
Socrates mind as he drank the hemlock as a reward for seeking Truth.  
But Plato was there to record his feelings for posteriority.  Now the 
rats would be rewarding him for the same offence – looking up to Truth 
and staring down the Future.  But he had no Plato to record his words 
and feelings.  He was alone in a sewer.  Nobody would know how he felt. 
 Then he remembered that God was everywhere, even in a sewer.  So he 
started talking to God about his feeling.  At least God would know how 
he felt at the last moments of his life. 

As he talked to God, a rat bit him hard and tore away the first mouthful
from the pound of flesh he owed to History.  The stream of pain  that 
gushed from his heel to his head juggled his brain cells and threw the 
answer right at History's face. 

How could he have been so stupid?  The answer was lying right under the
nose.  Like all simple but deep truths, it was there all the time.  
Only he couldn't see it.  The answer was not a suspicious event on a 
spooky night but an event in broad daylight which no Norwegian could 
ever forget to his last day. 

He remembered that one evening, at prime time, all TV programs of all TV
channels in Norway were stopped, and it was announced that the King of 
Norway would urgently address the nation within minutes. 

Panic broke out immediately.  People rushed towards underground bunkers
and sewers.  They thought that ETs were on their way to attack Norway.  
Many committed suicide.  They could not stand the sight of aliens, 
whether from a galaxy in outer space or a neighbouring country on this 
very friendly earth.  But unperturbed by mass hysteria and en masse 
sucides, the King appeared on TV on schedule. 

He was a towering figure, dressed in military uniform which was laced
with medals all over. 

He came to the point at once. 

He started by patting his own back.  He said that under his rule Norway
has become more than the most civilized nation on earth.  Than he 
saluted himself for his own achievement.  Then he said that it was not 
enough.  He wanted Norway to be not a nation but a paradise on earth.  
Then he saluted himself again for his vision of paradise on earth.  
Then he declared open a "Norway is Paradise Week" and saluted himself 
for a third time in as many seconds for opening this Paradise Week. 

He promised that within this “Paradise Week” Norway would outshine the
Garden of Eden. 

How, he explained. 

God allowed snakes in the Garden of Eden.  He won't repeat God's
mistakes.  He will destroy all snakes - all sorts of legal and illegal 
immigrants crawling on their starving bellies eating the dust of 
norwegian streets. 

Karl Johans Gate would be the New Garden of Eden, a Paradise without
snakes, he screamed. 

Then he saluted himself for outshining God.  Then he declared that
within a year comparing him to God and Norway to paradise would be an 
insult to both him and his country - in comparison to him and his 
country, God would look like the devil and paradise like hell. 

Then he saluted himself for defeating God at his own game. 

Then the King came to his edicts - his means to his ends, the bills
already passed by a rubber-stamp parliament. 

He declared that within the “Paradise Week” all surveillance cameras,
video and audio recording devices from every street, office, home, and 
shop will be removed.  Even tape recorders and video recorders for home 
use were forbidden because of their potential misuse.  All spy-agencies 
were dissolved and secret police disbanded.  All informers were 
expelled from Norway.  Then he ordered the president of United States 
to do the same by disbanding the CIA and the FBI once and for all.  
Then he asked all the people on earth to roam naked in their capitals 
to celebrate the Second Coming of Paradise on Earth – emulate the 
innocence and freedom of Adam and Eve in the New Garden of Eden. 

Suddenly the King pulled out a small surveillance camera from his big
back-pocket, raised it to the masses as if it was Robespierre's head, 
and then dashed it to the ground. 

As he trampled on the broken pieces, he screamed, 

“Alone and singled-handed, unsupported by international community or
other world leaders, I have overthrown the Big Brother and his evil 
Surveillance Empire.  Now Norwegians will be as free of any 
surveillance as Adam and Eve.” 

Many did not wait for the King to finish his speech.  They were in great
hurry to celebrate this Second Coming of Paradise and the end of the 
hated Surveillance Era.  The things they were taught to love now became 
the things they were told to hate.  They ran and smashed their own 
beloved TV with a hammer, and threw their own beloved camcorders out of 
the window.  Then they rushed out to the streets just to find that 
others had got there first, and were busy in wiping out the last 
vestige of the Big Brother and his evil Surveillance Heritage.  
Thousands were hanging from the light-posts tearing down surveillance 
devices , others had attacked their own banks, calling them the last 
bastions of Surveillance Nightmare.  A few brave ones checked their 
tears, suppressed their feelings, closed their eyes, and mustered 
enough courage and strength to attack their most favourite TV station 
for broadcasting their most favourite program – The Big Brother. 

The unexpected overthrow of the Big Brother had created a political
vacuum and it had to be filled fast.  Pitched battles and hand-to-hand 
fighting broke out in every Norwegian town between the believers in the 
Second Coming of Christ and the believers in the Second Coming of Marx. 


And that was not all.  Many were carrying the fight to the oceans and
the Outer Space. 

Hundreds of Norwegians got together and hijacked a submarine from the
Navy HQ to scour the ocean-beds from surveillance devices. 

Thousands were air-borne within minutes and were heading towards the
moon and the Mars in home-made rockets to destroy any surveillance 
device the Big Brother might have planted there during his countless 
secret trips to Outer Space. 

A crazy Norwegian in a mental asylum in Hammerfest – the most nothernly
town on earth – was weeping and hugging the other inmates and saying 
goodbye to everybody because he was on his way  to the Milky Way.  A 
voice told him that the Big Brother and his shameless stool-pigeon, 
Prof.Dr. Mann, had escaped from the earth and were on their way to seek 
political asylum in the Pole Star.  He calmed down and unpacked his 
hand-bag only after the other inmates assured him that the trouble  was 
no longer necessary.  On his own orders, his own army of ETs from 
distant galaxies was already moving towards the earth with the speed of 
light to intercept  them and prevent them from polluting Outer Space 
the way they had polluted the earth.  Very soon he will have the heads 
of two of the most hated men in the universe – the Big Brother and his 
vile henchman, Prof.Dr. Mann – on a platter. 

Blissfully unaware that even before the speech was over the Norwegians
were calling him the Second Christ and killing each other for his sake, 
the King continued with his speech. 

Suddenly he became very emotional and tears came to his eyes.  He
started talking about the queen as if she was already dead when she was 
actually standing right besides him.  Then he startrd going round her 
in circles and she round him as if they were re-marrying on TV in the 
Hindu traditions. 

Suddenly he thrust his hand in her bodice and pulled out something, and
again raised it to the masses as if it was Hussein's head. 

But this time nobody could see anything.  Whatever the King may be
holding in his fingers was perfectly invisible.  He better explain what 
the gimmick was all about and that too very fast before the same masses 
who had called him the Second Christ a moment ago started demanding his 
head instead of Robespierre's or Hussein's. 

But it appeared as if he was suddenly out of words and ideas.  So he
started jumping on the stage and scratching his ass with his other hand 
and playing the clown to maintain the fickle interest of the masses.  
But it was all turning out to be an embarrassing anti-climax to a great 
speech – a historic speech which started a new era but was  now ending 
with the orator himself jumping on the stage like a monkey and waving 
something in his hand which did not exist – something as false as an 
election promise. 

The queen saw the thumbs moving down and the King's bleeding head flying
into her lap.  She pushed him aside and played the orator to save the 
orator in disgrace. 

Noble Norwegians, Jewels of my heart, the King holds my soul in his
hand.  He is playing my dreams with his fingers, singing my design of 
the universe with his song - the passport to paradise I designed for 
you with my sweat, blood, toil, and tears.  Our love offers you the 
talisman which will catapult you into the future faster than any 
Time-Machine.  Yet what we offer you is no cranky machine but Pure 
Idea.  It is called the Paradise Ear Ring.  Wear it and you will be 
distinguishable from the rest of humanity as the Citizens of Paradise – 
as Adams and Eves of the future.  It is the new Star of David which 
will make you stand out as the new beacons of mankind.  It is 
invisible, it is a gold wire weighing less than a nanogram.  Call it 
the Nano Ring if you want – the Nano Star of David. 

The King became inspired and possessed.  Blood rushed to every cell of
his body.  He did not know that the queen could speak so beautifully 
and powerfully.  She had decorated the path to the climax with herself. 
 Now it was for him to do the rest - reach the climax by ejaculating 
the  most potent words ever uttered by man and show the queen and the 
world who was in command. 

He rushed to the queen, threw himself upon her, and set in motion the
Cosmic Orgasm ending with the Cosmic Sigh of Relief, 

“ Friends, Norwegians, countrymen, this is not a Nano Ring.  This is the
end of Anno Domini.” 

A tsunami of catastrophic thought-waves had struck Norway.  So much had
happened in the last fifteen minutes that it would take fifteen lives 
to absorb and understand it: 

The Big Brother and his evil Surveillance Empire had been overthrown,
Anno Domini ceased to exist, time-hallowed dates became instantly 
outdated, the earth became a Paradise, and a new Star of David was 
born.  In celebration, bonfires of outdated diaries and calendars – the 
last relics of Anno Domini - made the night as bright as the day. 

Those damned souls chained to Inferno, like Prof.Dr. Mann, who could not
take so much in one go went mad.  Others looked at the Nano Ring as a 
saviour in the Dark Age ahead and went on their knees to seek its 
blessings.  Still others started running on the street and tearing 
their clothes to enter the same state of nature as naked Adam and Eve.  
There was a stampede to the King's palace to get the Miracle Ring which 
had brought Heaven on earth.  There was no time to go to the doctors to 
get their ears pierced.  They pierced their own ears as they ran and 
with whatever they could get hold off – a toothpick, needle, or 
scissors.  Some used the plain old nail and hammer because they did not 
believe that there could be blood. sweat, toil, and tears in paradise.  
And when they started bleeding and crying in pain, they refused to go 
to the doctor because they did not believe that there could or should 
be doctors in Paradise.  And everybody was pinching everybody else's 
ears just to make sure that they all were really alive and indeed in 
Paradise. 

Within no time five million Norwegians was wearing the Nano Ring –
totally invisible except through a big, bleeding, and swollen hole in 
the ear lobe.  Again a few damned souls dangling in Purgatory  refused 
to run with the crowd because their strength lay not in their legs but 
their head.  But headless people with only legs to show were not 
worried because soon these heads without legs would be cast out of 
Paradise too like the immigrant snakes. 

Huge posters appeared on Karl Johans Gate out of nowhere.  One read: 

God wrongly banished Adam and Eve from Paradise. 

The King has rightly banished snakes - immigrants - from Paradise. 

Long Live the King of Paradise. 

Another poster read: 

The Nano Ring is the Gateway to Paradise. 

Enter the Garden of Eden through the Paradise Ear Ring. 

Still another read: 

Burn Anno Domini to save the Future. 

Two posters carried war slogans: 

Crush God's Paradise with snakes with King's Paradise without snakes. 

Crush God's Will with King's Bill. 

and 

Hang high the Big Brother and his evil henchman, Prof.Dr.Mann, till they
die. 

Smash surveillance cameras with Nano Rings. 

Prof.Dr.Mann boxed himself as many times as the King had saluted
himself.  How could he have been so stupid?  How could he not have seen 
something lying in broad daylight and right under his nose. 

He boxed himself again and again as he wailed like a dog in distress, 

"I knew it was coming, I knew it was coming.  Then why didn't I see it
when it came?  Why?  Why didn't I see that the Nano Ring is the Thought 
Transmitter,  the X-Rays machine for thoughts and dreams – the Wonder 
Weapon (Wunder Waffen) of all future dictators and tyrants." 

He boxed himself till his eyes were blue and ears red.  He did not
notice that a tiny mice had climbed on his shoulder and was whispering 
in his ears to stop torturing himself for the sins of others.  She was 
so gentle and harmless – not at all like the other rats.  But he had so 
much on his mind that he paid no attention to what was on his shoulder. 


But soon enough he was forced to notice her. 

It appeared as if the tiny creature was on the run from Ratkind the way
he himself was on the run from Mankind, because soon he began to notice 
that an army of huge rats was advancing towards him, sniffing in every 
direction as if they were looking for something.  And that something 
could only be the mice, because they were sniffing the most in his 
direction.  They were not only huge, they looked furious and ready to 
devour anything that stood between them and the creature they were 
after. 

Prof.Dr. Mann felt an instant affinity for the lady in distress.  She
reminded him of himself – always on the run from somebody or the other. 
 And an inner voice told him it was time to be on the run once more - 
to save a beautiful lady who herself was on the run. 

He took the mice in his hand, gave a war-cry that shook the underworld,
and stepped on the army of rats to step out of the sewer and into a mad 
world. 

As he resurfaced on Karl Johans Gate, he was utterly naked and covered
with rats who had dug deep pits in his flesh.  He was bleeding all over 
and had no idea where and how he lost his clothes, but he still had the 
mice in his hand and she was perfectly safe. 

He was screaming like a man in flames, 

"Hear me guys, hear me everybody.  Throw away the Nano Ring.  Throw it
in a bonfire.  It is not that Gateway to Paradise you have been told.  
It is the gateway to permanent enslavement of body, mind, and soul.  It 
spells the End of Mankind.  It is a Nano Machine which scans your 
thoughts and dreams and sends them live to the police.  It is the dream 
machine for future dictators and tyrants – a Thought and Dream Scanner 
and Transmitter." 

Everybody who saw him screamed.  Nobody had seen a man covered with rats
on Karl Johanns Gate before.  He ran and shouted like a man possessed.  
Some bold and beautiful ones, who were not afraid of rats, rushed to 
help him.  As they started tearing off the rodents from his body, he 
grabbed their ears and begged them to throw away their Paradise Ear 
Ring even though none of them wore any ear ring at all.  Nobody paid 
any attention to him.  They knew the poor fellow was in a shock.  But 
even after all the rats had been thrown away by their tails and he was 
given first aid and clothes to cover his nakedness, he kept on grabbing 
everybody's ears and removing ear rings which were not there in the 
first place.  As soon as he had clothes, his lady had a house.  He 
slipped her quietly in his pocket. 

The police arrived very soon and asked him for his identity card.  He
handed them a crumpled up piece of paper he held in his fist .  It 
read: 

Prof.Dr.Mann's Manifesto 

1) All human thoughts and dreams are private and sacrosanct. 

2) Nobody has a right to spy on, control, or manipulate thoughts and
dreams live and in real time. 

3) Nobody should be arrested and killed for his dreams because they are
not under one's control, and nobody should doctor the dreams of his 
fellowmen.  The list of Top 100 Forbidden and Black-listed Dreams 
should be banned. 

4) Faith in the intrinsic goodness of man should not be lost even after
8-8-88. 

The police could not make head or tail of this crap.  As he had no
identity card, they asked him who he was. 

“I am a pilgrim from the Past to the Future, stuck in the Present with
guys like you.  My childhood chum, Dante, helped me out of the Dark 
Forest of the Past.  But then he betrayed me and ran away to sing with 
Virgil, leaving me stranded in the Present.  Now he sleeps with 14-9-21 
as I stride towards 8-8-88.  Lady Beatrice will show me the way.  She 
has been there, she has seen the future, she has celebrated every 
8-8-88 – past, present, future.  She knows them all.” 

And he took out the mice from his pocket and introduced her to the
police as Lady Beatrice. 

When the police heard him raving that a mice knew the future and could
guide mankind, they immediately got a very clear picture of his mental 
state and knew exactly what to do next. 

So the next moment Prof.Dr.Mann stood handcuffed before the gate of the
very Psychiatry ward of which he was the head. 

Pandemonium broke out among his colleagues and former students.  They
had seen it coming.  Some had betted huge money on this very day.  They 
were running and shouting with joy and spreading the good news all over 
the Ullevall Hospital.  They had every reason to celebrate because they 
had won a bet for the first time in life.  It was a unique show.  Never 
before had  doctors, so used to forcibly dampening the excitement of 
others, been so spontaneously excited themselves. 

"Prof.Dr.Mann has come back.  He has come back.  The police found him
weeping in a urinal.  He is sitting handcuffed in the waiting room.  He 
is still weeping and saying that he has fallen in love with a mice.   
How pervert.  Go and see it for yourself if you don't believe me." 
floated the rumours, not as a whisper but as a carnival-cry.  This 
single carnival-cry brought a lot of money to a lot of medical 
gamblers. 

Aspiring heads of the ward who had not betted on him but who resented
him nevertheless rushed towards him and started punching him.  He 
looked very dangerous and suspicious to them even though he was unarmed 
and handcuffed.  They tried to snatch away his mice before binding him 
to his bed with straps. 

That drove him mad.  He knew where they would take her, what they will
do with her, how slowly and leisurely they will kill her. 

“Don't kill her.  She is the only creature in the universe who has seen
the future and can take me there.  You killed Christ.  Don't do it 
again.” 

His hands were tied, so he started hitting them with his head.  He even
hit his head against the wall.  Everybody could see he was very upset.  
So for the time being they left his lady alone.  But they dragged him 
to a hospital bed and tied his hands and feet to the four corners to 
save him from himself.  They put his lady on his stomach and very soon 
she was roaming all over the bed.  But strangely they did not put a 
tape over his mouth.  They had their reasons. 

The more he screamed and shouted, the stronger the case that he had
indeed gone mad, and greater the chance for someone among them to 
become the next head. 

So day and night Prof.Dr.Rattan Mann lay tied to his bed in Oslo like
Dr. Gulliver in Lilliput, with a Lilliputian mice crawling all over 
him, and showing him people, places, and things he had never seen 
before.  But the less he could move, the more he screamed to be set 
free. 

He raved incessantly about a mysterious Nano Ring, about the Second
Coming of Christ and Marx, about 8-8-88, and about a mysterious Lady 
from Lilliput who would save mankind. 

Even a child could see that he was mentally disturbed. 

And weeks and months passed without Prof.Dr.Mann becoming any better or
the police any wiser about his true identity. 

As the Norwegian police ate its head off figuring out Prof.Dr. Mann's
identity, and begged the MI5 and Homeland Security to help them, 
rumours, like rolling monsoon clouds, began to fill in the vacuum 
created by the total absence of truth. 

The first rumour was a low-intensity whisper-campaign: 

It was alleged that Prof.Dr.Mann was never the head of the Psychiatry
ward, but might have become one, had he not gone mad   first. 

After the effects of this whisper-campaign had worn-off, a second bomb
was thrown which did considerable damage to Prof.Dr.Mann's reputation: 

It was now alleged that Prof.Dr.Mann was neither a professor, nor a
doctor, and had never been employed in the Psychiatry ward or any other 
ward of Ullevall Hospital.  He was a self-employed quack who eked out a 
living by selling home-made pills on Karl Johans Gate. 

The third bombshell killed Prof.Dr.Mann once and for all.  He ceased to
exist. 

The Social Office in the Oslo suburb of Hauketo leaked a document to the
police that showed that Prof.Dr.Mann was neither employed, nor 
self-employed, but a totally unemployed old man of 64 living on 
Åsbråtstien 15, and coming to Hauketo every fortnight to collect his 
dole. 

The fourth and final rumour ended all doubts and speculations,  brought
a very weird saga to a logical conclusion, and satisfied everybody 
except the CIA and MI5: 

A mole in the Norwegian Education ministry leaked to the press that
sometime back an eviction notice was served to one plain Mr. Rattan 
Mann for defaulting on his study and house loan.  He then wrote several 
letters to the King of Norway asking His Majesty's help in getting a 
job, so that he could start paying back his loans, avoid beating and 
torture by mafia loan-sharks, and retain a very tiny roof over his 
head. 

The King never responded, and the day the bankfolks came to repossess
his tiny flat, he attacked them with a kitchen-knife, and when he heard 
the police knocking at his front door, he escaped by the back door, and 
hid in a sewer till the rats chased him out.  Somewhere during this 
time he lost his mind and went mad.  It was in the sewer that he 
started imagining things and events which never took place and were a 
mere figment of his imagination. 

He had already been charged for insulting the King of Norway by
involving His Majesty in a grotesque speech he never gave, and the 
police was waiting to arrest him as soon as his identity was 
established and he was fit enough to stand trial. 

On this confusing battle-field where lies and counter-lies, rumours and
counter-rumours flew like gangland bullets in Harlem and suicide bombs 
in Baghdad , it was very hard to be sure of anything concerning 
Prof.Dr.Mann. 

But one thing was reasonably certain.  Prof.Dr.Mann's days on the run
were over once and for all.  He had finally arrived home.  Once more 
being the same old unemployed Mr. Rattan Mann, he had no worry, nobody 
to run from, and nowhere to run to.  A happy end at last. 

But even this happy end in a mad-house could not quench all rumours and
speculations. 

Long long after the happy end some curious  souls continued to believe
that he was indeed that world-famous Prof.Dr. Mann who went missing 
with Dr. Livingston more than a century ago.  Others insisted that he 
was the first mental casuality of the recent global economic meltdown 
and the house-market collapse.  And all wondered whether he was really 
mad or just pretending, and if so, why. 

The naked Truth was somewhere out there in the starry starry X-files
waiting to be discovered – by Prof.Dr. Mann himself. 

The End 

Copyright Rattan Mann Address: Åsbråtstien 15, 1251 Oslo Norway e-mails:
rattanmann@myway.com  and rattan.mann@gmail.com 


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