Solving the following riddle will reveal the awful secret behind the universe, assuming you do not go utterly mad in the attempt. If you already happen to know the awful secret behind the universe, feel free to skip ahead.
Let’s say you have an ax. Just a cheap one, from Home Depot. On one bitter winter day, you use said ax to behead a man. Don’t worry, the man was already dead. Or maybe you should worry, because you’re the one who shot him.
He had been a big, twitchy guy with veiny skin stretched over swollen biceps, a tattoo of a swastika on his tongue. Teeth filed into razor-sharp fangs, you know the type. And you’re chopping off his head because, even with eight bullet holes in him, you’re pretty sure he’s about to spring back to his feet and eat the look of terror right off your face.
On the follow-through of the last swing, though, the handle of the ax snaps in a spray of splinters. You now have a broken ax. So, after a long night of looking for a place to dump the man and his head, you take a trip into town with your ax. You go to the hardware store, explaining away the dark reddish stains on the broken handle as barbecue sauce. You walk out with a brand new handle for your ax.
The repaired ax sits undisturbed in your garage until the next spring when, on one rainy morning, you find in your kitchen a creature that appears to be a foot-long slug with a bulging egg sac on its tail. Its jaws bite one of your forks in half with what seems like very little effort. You grab your trusty ax and chop the thing into several pieces. On the last blow, however, the ax strikes a metal leg of the overturned kitchen table and chips out a notch right in the middle of the blade.
Of course, a chipped head means yet another trip to the hardware store. They sell you a brand new head for your ax. As soon as you get home with your newly-headed ax, though, you meet the reanimated body of the guy you beheaded last year. He’s also got a new head, stitched on with what looks like plastic weed trimmer line, and it’s wearing that unique expression of “you’re the man who killed me last winter” resentment that one so rarely encounters in everyday life.
You brandish your ax. The guy takes a long look at the weapon with his squishy, rotting eyes and in a gargly voice he screams, “That’s the same ax that slayed me!”
Is he right?
ID:182464
 Jun 13 2008, 12:46 pm
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Jun 13 2008, 12:52 pm
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DivineTraveller
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New head.. new handle. No, he is wrong, in essence. But as I say this, I argue to myself, "but it was infact repaired, so it should still be the same ax." Regardless, I go with no.
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DivineTraveller wrote:
New head.. new handle. No, he is wrong, in essence. But as I say this, I argue to myself, "but it was infact repaired, so it should still be the same ax." Regardless, I go with no. Agreed, but what does this have to do with a secret to the universe? Seems pretty pointless in summation. x.x | |
The axe was not used to kill the man, merely to process the corpse.
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If he was shot eight times than how could the axe be the thing that killed him? So my answer is no.
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Seraphrevan wrote:
If you already happen to know the awful secret behind the universe, feel free to skip ahead. Although I'm pretty close to the answer to this, I'm going to read this anyway since the answer definately wasn't known in this century. Is he right? No, because he's either not dead (because he's still moving) or was already dead to begin with (because even back when you beheaded him he was showing no signs of life; no body heat etc.). I guess it kinda depends on what kind of immortality this guy has. Apparently he's a different type of undead, as he still has control of his body and has still the ability to see normally even though his eyes are on the floor along with his mouth, nose and ears. It could be that he picked up his old head and went to a plastic surgeon with it, who modeled the face after his favorite actor or idol and then stitched it back to his body. -- Data | |
Android Data wrote:
Seraphrevan wrote: No, he's undead! | |
Miran94 wrote:
No, he's undead! Shut it -- I posted that too hastily and spent five minutes editing it. Don't reply to my post like that, but wait until I'm done! -- Data | |
He is not right. The handle was replaced, and the head was replaced. Unless he was the slug, of course. That would mean he recognized the handle.
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John Dies at the End, online book.
The concept of this riddle - sans stupid riddle - is the topic of the book The Fifth Elephant, by Terry Pratchett. Hell, I might as well just copy-paste from that... "This will become, in time, the ax of someone's grandfather. And no doubt over the years it will need a new handle or a new blade and over the centuries the shape will change in line with fashion, but it will always be, in every detail and respect, the ax I give you today. And because it will change with the times, it will always be sharp." Written at least a year before David Wong started writing John Dies at the End. Just something to think about. And I agree with Android Data: the guy was never killed by an axe. | |
"Or maybe you should worry, because you’re the one who shot him."
He was killed by a bullet not an axe. Therefore, it can't be the same axe that killed him, because he was never killed by an axe. And in theory, if all parts of an axe are replaced, it can't be the same axe. You can remember it as an axe you were given as a present but in reality, you pretty much just bought a new axe. | |