In the searing heat of African May, our heroine, Jane, was in heat. She crept up to her husband, Shane, and put her arms around him. He brushed her aside with an apologetic look and retreated into his book.
"What's wrong, honey?" she asks, looking into his eye (the other one always 'looks the other way', in a literal sense), hoping to find an answer to his unusual behavior.
"Nothing. It can wait, I'm working," he replies, burrowing into a file titled '9/11 Conspiracy Theories'.
"You have been working on it for over three years now, darling, any progress yet?"
"Yes. I am now certain that this is the handiwork of terrorists. I only have to go to the middle-east to find and kill them."
"Isn't that dangerous?" she asks, concernedly.
"Rubbish! I'm from the CIA, danger is an everyday term."
Shane takes a bus to Egypt, journeying through the vast desert, marveling at the beauty of the occasional pyramid and the more frequent skeletons of men and animals on parched sand with equal enervated wonder. He later shares a boat full of illegal immigrants to Saudi. He is given a turban, an overflowing gown-like dress and a machine gun-- the equivalent of a Visa in any other country -- to blend in with the locals there. Sneaking into Iraq from there wasn't very difficult with the help of a local, Mashud bin Mazad, a rapist-turned-doctor-turned-thief-turned-rapist.
"Why are you here?" he asks Shane.
"To catch and kill the terrorists who killed my mom in the 9/11 attacks."
Mashud eyes him suspiciously, before replying, "Yes, I understand."
Two hours later, Mashud takes him to Abu-al-Sayeed, a purported brain behind the 9/11 attacks.
"What have you brought this time, Mashud?" the fat, bearded Sayeed asks, smiling over his hookah, "an American to behead, eh?"
"Yes, Sayeed bhai, he wants to catch and kill the 9/11 'terrorists'," replies Mashud, chuckling to himself.
"Oh! Have a seat, Mr.Self-Righteous American."
Warily, Shane sat down. There were twenty bearded men around him, all pointing their machine guns at him.
"This could be difficult, but I will try to make things as simple as possible," Sayeed starts.
"Go ahead and kill me, you coward, I am not afraid of anything," Shane shoots back defiantly.
"No, no, we will not kill you," he replies, drawing surprised and disappointed glances from the fellow bearded men around, "Today, I will tell you a story. An American story."
"It is a common misconception that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by Al-Qaeda," he continues, "but in fact, we were not even aware of it until we saw it on TV."
"I have read all the conspiracy theories, and I believe none," Shane replies, a little emboldened by Sayeed's assurance that he won't be killed.
"The American way of working, I'm not surprised," he says nonchalantly, blowing out mouthfuls of smoke-rings, "Fact is, we hate America and its decadent ways, and we will not hesitate from taking an infidel's life, and we will not stop at anything to get that sort of attention, but we simply did not do it."
"You should try harder to convince m.." he is interrupted by Sayeed gesturing him to stop as a phone begins ringing.
"Ye..yes, sir. O..ok..a..as..as you wish, sir," Sayeed replies, visibly shit scared.
"Who was it?" Shane asks curiously.
"It was the chief spokesperson of HIJACK," he replies, wiping sweat of his brow with a shiny green handkerchief.
"HIJACK?"
"House for International Jews who Attack, Conquer and Kingdom-ize."
"Kingdom-ize?"
"Yeah! I was told that was only put there to justify the acronym."
"OK. So, you appeared scared by the call, why?"
"[sigh].OK, I tell you, the Jews did it."
"What?!" a clearly surprised and terrified Shane exclaims.
"Yes. Did you not notice that 5000 Jews who worked at the WTC's were on leave on that particular day? And the stocks on the airliners that crashed into the towers received a dramatically high investments. And 85% of the investors were Jews?" he asks incredulously.
"No, I didn't," mutters Shane, with tears welling in eyes, "One of my best friends is a Jew."
"Hey, take it easy, man!" says Sayeed, putting an arm around him, "you want some pot?"
"Thanks, but I think I'll pass. But why would they do that?"
"Unfortunately, my friend, I do not have an answer to that," he shrugs, "Perhaps you should let it be at this; they're a dangerous people."
"I..I'm too shaken to even think."
"It happens, man. I think it is time for you to leave now, my friend," suggests Sayeed.
"Yes, thank you for enlightening me. And for sparing my life. I'm sorry I have misunderstood you guys," Shane replies, truly apologetically.
"Anytime, bro. But you know too much about us. So before you go, you will have to convert to our religion and pray to our God."
"Umm..OK, what will I have to do?" he asks.
"Nothing. Just embrace Allah as the only God and renounce your faith. You will get 72 virgins in heaven if you do so," the crafty salesman Sayeed offers.
"OK, done. Allah is my only God. I embrace you religion, brother," he says, hugging Sayeed.
"Careful, you might detonate the bomb strapped around my loins," he warns, laughing.
"The sooner we become shaheed, the sooner we get the houris," he winks, rising to leave.
"Ooh! and one more thing. You have to wear this bomb around your waist and fulfill Allah's wish when you find yourself amidst infidels."
"What?! That wasn't a part of the deal."
"It is, my friend. Prove to us you are a true jehadi."
An hour later, Shane, now Abu Shabbir Shane, finds himself walking in the deserts of Iraq, in an overflowing gown, a machine gun in hand, and a bomb around his loins. He walks aimlessly, unsure of what future would be like, shocked at how in four hours his life had turned upside down. Nevertheless, he decided to avenge his mother and begins searching for Jews. He comes across a Polish embassy and decides to blow himself up in there.
He walks in and before he could press the button, he finds himself being dragged in by an unseen force. Before he could grasp the situation, he finds himself in a room full of people working their brains away on many different things; things ranging from arts and literature of the most primitive form to engineering and technology of the most advanced form. He turns around and to the surprise of his life, finds Albert Einstein. He faints.
"Wake up, Shabbir Shane, wake up," an unfamiliar, distorted voice.
"Wha..what is this place? Am I dead? I don't remember pressing the button."
"You are very much alive, wake up."
He wakes up to see Einstein's friendly, smiling face. That comforts him a little and he musters enough courage to ask, "Sir, I thought you were dead. What is this place?"
"This is the headquarters of HIJACK," says Henry Kissinger.
"I don't believe it. I never thought Einstein would be a part of such a murderous plot," Shabbir Shane replied, disbelief written all over his sweaty face.
"He wasn't; he was unaware of it and still grumbles about it often."
"So, why did you do that?"
"For the greater good. We are an organisation that seeks to see a unified, peaceful world. Very much like America, only infinitely more powerful and hence, more capable," replied Kissinger.
"But, aren't you an American? Why then do you work against it?"
"I am not working against it; I work ahead of it."
"But who are all these people? I'm sure most of them here have died ages ago."
"I'm sorry, but I cannot reveal that information to you, you already know too much," replies a Jewish resistance fighter, cocking a gun.
"No, no, don't be hasty. It is a man's life we are talking about. You do not have the right to take a man's life, since you were not man enough to create it," interrupts Ayn Rand, in her traditional, long-winded manner. The soldier looks down sheepishly.
"The only way out for you is to prove your allegiance to our organisation by becoming one of us," another Jew, long thought to be dead.
"Shouldn't I have to die for that first?" Shabbir Shane asks.
"No. You have to become a Jew."
"What do I have to do to become a Jew?" he asks.
"Nothing, just get circumcised and prove your faith," the same soldier quips in, smirking.
"Wha..who.."
"Oh! you don't have to worry about that; leave that to Chop Berg," a Jewish lawyer assures.
"Oh, OK! Is he your surgeon?"
"No, he's a lobster. He has very strong pincers."
"Wha.." he faints again.
When he wakes up, he finds that the circumcision has already been performed without his consent and he seems to have paid more for it than the bargain.
"What the hell? Where's my pen.."
"Oh! I'm sorry to tell you, Mr.Shane, but someone made a joke while the lobster was working and he was laughing hysterically when he...when he was snipping and he lost control and...and...how do I put it without sounding rude..and he took the whole sausage as the price for it instead of just the jerky," the lawyer asserts.
"You will experience a very severe case of Penis Envy now on, Mr.Shane," Sigmund Freud chips in.
"You're Jewish?"
"Ah! One of my ancestors was," he replies, looking away into the drifting infinity of his cheroot smoke.
"You still have to prove your allegiance to us, Shane," the soldier again.
"What do I have to do now?"
"Die for us," he replies, eliciting stifled smirks and muffled laughter from everyone around.
"Wha..what if I don't?"
"You die, or we kill you."
"[sigh] OK. How?"
"Blow yourself up with that bomb around your loins."
'This is a great chance to avenge my mom. I will kill myself and the ones around me, too,' he thought to himself.
"Oh no, you won't!" butts in Einstein, "We can read your mind. You will go into that chamber and blow yourself up there."
Gnashing his teeth, he walks into the chamber and waits for the doors to close. Closing his eyes, remembering Jane and his mother for one last time, he pushes the button. Nothing happens. He looks around cluelessly. Through the glass doors, he sees the team of Jewish scientists gesturing him to press the button again. He does so, with a heightened sense of fear and helplessness. Nothing happens again. He pushes it for a third time, and is s till in one piece. The doors open and he comes out beaming.
"The bomb's faulty," he explains to a scientist.
"No, it is not. You are dead," the scientist explains to a baffled Shane.
"But I don't understand."
"The chamber you went in is rigged. It is connected to a machine devised by Einstein and Feynman that measures the spin of a quantum particle. You must be aware of Schrodinger's cat, aren't you?"
"The cat that is simultaneously dead and alive in a vacuum chamber?"
"Yes. The chamber you went into is quite similar to that. When you pushed the button for the first time, the quantum particle spun in a clockwise direction, by which you should have been dead. But the machine measured it, so it altered its direction and spun the other way, and you are alive."
"What if it had spun in counter-clockwise direction the first time? Measuring it would alter it and I would have been dead."
"There is another device connected right next to it, which would measure it again, should the first measurement alter the spin in a fashion that would lead you to die."
"But if I'm alive, aren't I? Why do you say I'm dead?"
"Just look at the chamber you have exited."
The chamber is a bloody mess, with limbs and flesh sticking to the walls and head hanging from the ceiling. Disgusted and horrified, he looks away, fighting the surge of bile rising in his throat.
"Tha..that's me?" he asks.
"Yes."
"Then who is this?" he asks, pointing to his hands and face.
"This is you, too," the scientist proceeds to explain, "You see, every time a quantum particle is measured, the universe is halved, and you will continue existing in all the universes as a different, conscious entity. You have died the third time you pushed the button. If you hadn't, there would have been four of you now, in different universes, but one of them has died without splitting, so there are only two of you now."
"You mean, I have not died in the real world?"
"No, you're alive in the real world, but without a penis."
"So, HIJACK isn't bad, after all?"
"No, it isn't; it only needs a complete control over the world, but only to ensure that it remains a peaceful place."
"So, can I go home now?"
"Yes, one of you can, but the other one has to remain here to assist us in world domination."
Shane, now Shanestein, is teleported to his house in Africa and all is well between Shane and Jane, except that they can never have a baby together.
