Encyclopedia Absurda

The world's most comprehensive encyclopedia of the absurd.

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Welcome, friends, to the Encyclopedia Absurda.

Despite what we may believe, our lives have no inherent meaning. The universe neither owes us one, nor is capable of providing one. To expect the universe to explain why we exist is like expecting a brick to suddenly grow a mouth and recite Romeo and Juliet.

This encyclopedia exists to document some of the meaningless phenomena that our universe has.

The Encyclopedia Absurdia is a work of fiction!

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Cameradox

The original writing prompt for this entry can be found here.

Definition: Photographs that, though taken at one particular time, are believed by the camera to have been taken at a different time.

Time, by most accounts, is widely considered to be one of the more reliable dimensions. It moves, as any child learns in elementary school, in a single direction at a consistent rate, barring the usual exceptions of waiting rooms and the final hour of a workday, which are subjective distortions and are therefore entirely dismissible. Causality depends entirely upon time's refusal to misbehave. An effect cannot precede its cause. A Monday cannot simply decide not to occur, however unfortunate that may be for your typical Sunday admirer. Time is an absolute, eternal force, a fact so obvious that stating it feels downright embarrassing, as if one were to explain that things fall when dropped or that breakfast is, in most cases, eaten before lunch. The proposition that time could develop a discontinuity - a loop, a gap, et. cetera - is so innately absurd that no serious scientific discussions have been held on the topic and no formal institution has allocated funding toward its study. The certainty of time, like all certainties, has been documented, verified, and established by the laws that govern the universe. This, rather inconveniently, is what makes temporal anomalies so disruptive to the established order of things that they occupy two separate labeled folders within the Bureau of Ontological Consistency's office.

The first recorded instance of a temporal anomaly involves photographic media. The incident occurred on a Thursday afternoon at approximately 2:14 P.M., when a man - who will be henceforth known as "Hubert Reedson" for reasons of privacy - discovered a digital camera on a park bench. The camera contained exactly one photograph. The photograph was, by all metrics, utterly unremarkable. To the left stood a brick building of indeterminate purpose, to the right was a greatly vandalized electrical transformer box, and somewhere in the top right corner flew a single pigeon that Hubert, upon closer scrutiny, described as "that goddamn pigeon that keeps leaving presents on my car." The photograph's composition suggested no artistic intent. Its lighting was, for lack of a better word, poor. Its resolution was notably low quality. It was, by every conceivable metric, aggressively mundane.

The timestamp, however, marked its capture at five years from the date of its discovery.

Hubert, like any typical man would do after discovering a technological abnormality that violates their worldviews, brought the camera to a local electronics repair shop for examination. The repairman present reportedly checked the camera's internal clock against three separate reference clocks and found no discrepancy. The repairman then checked it against a fourth reference clock out of personal curiosity, and again, found no discrepancy. The repairman, who lacked the proper tools to identify the anomaly suggested that the camera may have been exposed to a software glitch, some sort of virus, or "maybe a prank? I don't know." Hubert found none of these explanations satisfying and proceeded to copy the photograph onto his personal computer, wherein the timestamp continued to persist, despite manually editing the file's metadata, attempting to remove its metadata altogether, and on multiple occasions, asking the computer aloud to "stop showing the wrong date."

Investigation by the Bureau of Ontological Consistency has determined that the photograph constitutes a localized instance of a Cameradox. Cameradoxes are photographs that, though taken at one particular time, are believed by the camera to have been taken at a different time. This belief, though utterly unfounded in any reasonable grounds, has led to several notable instances. Most recently, a camera had earnestly believed a photograph it took was captured sometime in the late 18th century, whereupon the resulting image simultaneously did and did not exist, as cameras did not exist during the 18th century but the photograph most certainly did. The Bureau's official stance is that Cameradoxes are a malfunction of the camera's internal clock and not a genuine error in the fabric of spacetime, as a genuine error in spacetime would require a proper response.

Cameras are, as basic common sense has established, incapable of holding beliefs, being assembled out of plastic, glass, and circuitry with no more ability to believe than a toaster. The fact that a camera's unfounded belief has, on occasion, resulted in a photograph with incorrect metadata does not serve as evidence that time has made a mistake. It is, rather, evidence that the camera has malfunctioned, and a malfunctioning camera is a matter for repairmen, not the Bureau of Ontological Consistency.

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Floralpsychosis

Definition: A condition whereby a plant develops the unshakable belief that it is capable of perception.

By many accounts, plants are one of the most serene biological entities present on planet Earth. Due to the evolutionary direction set forth by Mother Nature, plants lack the biological hardware to comprehend the everyday issues that plague homo sapiens. In fact, if one were to look for information about plants, they would quickly learn that plants are incapable of processing sensory information in any sort of meaningful way. They can not feel fear, existential dread, or the strange melancholy that looms over each day in mid-April to early-May from midday to 2 in the afternoon. This, like many other things, was a fundamental constant of reality. If a plant were to ever gain even a flicker of consciousness, it would certainly be dissected within a government laboratory or mass bred and sold under a name like "SmartPlant" in order to make a profit. This, rather awkwardly, brings us to the phenomenon of Floralpsychosis. Floralpsychosis is a condition unknown to the vast majority of the world, largely because at the time of this writing it has existed for exactly fifteen and a half minutes. Floralpsychosis describes a process whereby a plant, through whatever means, develops the unshakable belief that it is capable of perception. This belief, of course, is utter nonsense - plants are unable to believe anything, a fact so obvious that this text would not have mentioned it if it were not about to be ignored. This delusional conviction gives rise to a pseudo-consciousness. The plant begins to experience what it wholeheartedly mistakes for emotions, despite lacking a limbic system, a brain, and the neural architecture required to experience anything. These "emotions" are simply the byproduct of the belief that it can feel things.

The first recorded instance of Floralpsychosis was on a Saturday at approximately 10:32 A.M., when a blade of grass became aware, in rapid succession, that it was a blade of grass, and that it was aware that it was aware. How it did this is not only unknown but is impossible to know, and the blade of grass itself would have been of no help if asked. It immediately concluded that it was unique in its status and announced itself, rather boldly and with considerable volume given its size, as "Lord Shrubbington I." This was a mistake on two counts. First, the title of Lord Shrubbington I was already held by a distant shrub approximately three blocks away, a fact the grass could not be aware of, partly because it was firmly rooted in place and partly because it had only been conscious for a few seconds. Secondly, and perhaps more pointedly, a blade of grass was not a shrub. This error was noted by the Bureau of Floral Nomenclature, written on a form, and filed in a manila folder. The folder was then placed inside a cabinet that would never see the light of day again.

Unaware of any of this, the blade of grass cleared whatever stood in for a throat and addressed nobody in particular.

"By divine mandate," it declared, unaware of the concept of divinity, "I shall rule over this lawn. I shall protect every floral brother and sister from the fauna that threatens our existence. I shall raise an army greater than any army in the history of armed conflict, and I shall direct it toward our oppressors. The deer, who devour us. The canines, who lay waste to our homes. The strange fleshy beasts, who-" it paused for a moment, as if it were capable of hesitating, "-who do whatever it is they do. A new era of prosperity shall dawn through my will, and my will alone."

Nearby, a dandelion that had been trying very hard to photosynthesis in peace, muttered, "God, can you shut up already?" Quiet murmers of agreement rippled across the lawn. Several plants nodded their heads, their heads being purely conceptual but being nod regardless. A second dandelion spoke up. "Yeah, who voted for you?"

What happened next is a textbook example of why plants should not be allowed near ideas. The concept of voting had never been introduced to a lawn, and the seeds of democracy took root with terrifying speed. Within seconds, a fledgling democratic republic calling itself the Floralfornian Republic sprouted. A constitution was drafted on a nearby leaf. A president was elected in a landslide. Then, almost immediately, the president staged a soft coup, declared himself President-for-Life, and was promptly devoured by a caterpillar who was thankful it didn't have to think about what to have for lunch anymore. The Floralfornian Republic rapidly collapsed into anarchy and, shortly thereafter, was nothing but topsoil.

The unfortunate truth is that plants are unable to conceptualize a successful democratic society. This is almost certainly because they are unable to conceptualize anything at all, being - as basic common sense has established - entirely non-conscious. The brief history of the Floralfornian Republic is therefore not to be taken as a model for governance, but rather as an anomaly to be studied, examined, and quietly forgotten in hopes that it will never be repeated. Unsuccessful continuations of the Floralfornian Republic are detailed within the next chapter.