My Book Experiment Preface

The Real History of the World

 By

 M. D. Segal

Preface

It was almost midnight when Michael Moore looked at his watch.  He glanced at the computer’s clock and knew that the phone was about to ring.  In the last few months, the phone was ringing around this time of day or night rather.  It was Barbara’s bedtime, and she couldn’t resist the urge to call her husband and complain of his absence.  Michael knew she had a point.  Ever since that night, when he looked at the computer screen, his jaw dropped, and his life had changed forever.

Since that night, he basically lived in the lab.  He lost weight, grew a beard, and some colleagues made some nasty comments about his personal hygiene.  He didn’t care that much about the comments, nor did he care about his appearance.  He did, however, care about Barbara and the girls.  Yet his curiosity, and the feeling that he was on the verge of something really great, caused him to almost ignore the mundane activities of raising a family and paying attention to his own wife.  He was completely overtaken by his own discovery.

Barbara, obviously, didn’t share the interest and the feeling.  In fact, she started to hate it.  She was pushing him to use her father’s inheritance and find some other things to do – like sail around the world, or do some volunteer work.

When the phone finally rang, he was startled.  Barbara did not sound like her usual self.  She was upset.  She confronted him without as much as saying hello.  “Another night at the lab?” she asked.  “I’m sorry”, he said, “I’m waiting for some results, and then, I promise, I will come home”.  “Right”, she said and hung up.  Now, he knew, she would sulk for days, and spend lots of time with her mother, who didn’t like or appreciate him anyway.  Her mother, he thought, only liked tall, good looking, tanned, rich guys, who could play golf well.

The screen flashed, and Michael’s mind, sharper than ever, looked at the data and knew: he just made the most important discovery in man’s history, ever.  He had found the collective history of mankind.

And then there was nothing.