Connie Willis - Bellwether

Shirl was smiling a not-at-all-pinched smile at me. “And you still think I’m going about it all wrong?” she said. She leaned over to pull the copy out of the machine. “Interesting theory,” she said, picking up a stack of papers. “If I ever run into whoever it is that gives the Niebnitz Grant, I’ll be sure to pass it on.” She started out the door.

“Goodbye,” I said, and kissed her on her leathery cheek.

“What was that for?” she grumbled, rubbing at her cheek with her hand.

“Fixing the copy machine,” I said. “Oh, by the way,” I called after her. “Who’s the Niebnitz Grant named after?”

“Alfred Taylor Niebnitz,” she said without turning her head. “My high school physics teacher.”

Ouija board [1917–18]

Psychic game fad that purports to tell the future. Players push a planchette around a board with letters and numbers, spelling out answers to questions. Originated either in Maryland in the 1880s with C. W. Kennard or William and Isaac Fuld or in Europe in the 1850s, but did not become a fad until America entered World War I. Recurs every time there’s a war. Popular during World War II and the Korean conflict. Hit its highest number of sales in 1966–67, during the Vietnam War.

A theory is only as good as its ability to predict behavior. Mendeleev predicted that the blanks in his periodic table would be filled with elements of certain atomic weights and properties. The subsequent discoveries of gallium, scandium, and germanium bore out his predictions. Einstein’s special theory of relativity correctly predicted the deflection of light by the sun, tested out by the 1919 eclipse. Wegener’s theory of continental drift was corroborated by fossils and satellite photographs. And Fleming’s penicillin saved Winston Churchill’s life during World War II.

The bellwether theory of chaotic systems is just that, and Ben and I are still in the early stages of our research. But I’m willing to hazard a few predictions:

HiTek will switch acronyms at least twice in the next year, establish a dress code, and make the staff hold hands and nurture their inner children.

Dr. Turnbull will spend all of next year attempting to handicap the Niebnitz Grant, to no avail. Science doesn’t work like that.

I predict a number of new fads out of Prescott, Arizona, or Albuquerque or Fort Worth. Boulder, Seattle, and L.A. will fade out as trendsetters. Forehead brands will be big, and dental floss, and bobbed hair, particularly the marcel wave, will make a comeback.

As to the spiritual, angels are out and fairies will be in, particularly fairy godmothers, which, after all, do exist. Merchandisers will make a killing on them and then lose their shirts trying to anticipate the next craze.

I predict a sharp decline in sheep-raising, an increase in weddings, and no change at all in the personals. The hot dessert this fall will be pineapple upside-down cake.

And in some company or research institute or college, an overqualified mail clerk who is overweight or wears fur or carries a Bible will be hired, and the scientists therein would do well to remember their childhood fairy tales.

There will be a sharp upswing in significant scientific breakthroughs, and chaos, as usual, will reign. I predict great things.

This morning, I met Flip’s replacement. I’d gone up to Stats to collect my hair-bobbing data, and she was coming out of the copy room, trailing someone’s memos behind her.

She had lavender hair, arranged in a fountain effect, with several strands of barbed wire wrapped around it. She was wearing a bowling shirt, pedal pushers, black patent tap shoes, and orange lipstick.

“Are you the new mail clerk?”

She pursed her orange lips in disdain. “It’s workplace message facilitation director,” she said, emphasizing every syllable. “And what business is it of yours, anyway?”

“Welcome to HiTek,” I said, and would have shaken her hand except that she was wearing a barbed-wire ring.

Great things.