password recovery

You’ve gotta be joking.

 

Do I look like I’m joking?

 

No… not exactly.

 

Not exactly?

 

No. Ok. You don’t look like you are, but that doesn’t make it any easier to believe.

 

Ah.

 

A entire life?

 

A lifetime. Correct.

 

I have to live an entire life, from beginning to end, just to recover my password – just to reaccess my account.

Just?

 

God, your pedantic, Stan.

 

I am what I am.

 

You’re saying that in order to recover my password to reaccess my account – I actually have to live an entire lifetime.

 

Ye-es. It’s taking a while, but you seem to have mastered the salient facts.

 

An entire lifetime?!

 

Oh dear – hope eternal – and yet – sometimes I feel the source running dry…

 

But there must be some kind of short cut?

 

There is.

 

Finally. I thought we were never going to get there.

 

A lifetime.

 

What?! Shortcut? An entire lifetime.

 

We are talking about access to infinity after all – or eternity if you want to correlate it with your notions of time.

 

But how on earth can you refer to a lifetime, an entire lifetime, as a shortcut? It’s preposterous.

 

Ah – but you have to look at it from our perspective.

 

From your perspective? Who cares about your bloody perspective – you’re not the ones stuck on wobbly, icky planet earth for an entire lifetime – merely in order to log back into my account.

 

Actually, as a system hub manager I’m “stuck here” as you put it, for considerably longer, though I prefer to think of it in a more contemplative, enlightened manner.

 

You do?

 

Yes, bright side of things kind of thing – Monty Python what ho – dire – yes, desperate – unequivocally, deranged – without a doubt – and yet – extrapolating my philosophical faculties to the N^th degree of anaphylactic self-irony I realise there is more to this purgatory, or hell, if you prefer, than meets the eye – initially, at least.

 

You mean – that even you, master of zen fu-ism find it excruciating here on earth.

 

Yes – you have a point – but on the other hand – I’m generating infinity codes which couldn’t otherwise be generated were I not here in the thick of things.

You are?

 

Yep.

 

How so?

 

Because only infinity is enough to make sense of this earth-y insanity.

 

Ah.

 

And it works?

 

Not always.

 

Not always?

 

Rarely.

 

How rarely?

 

Once in a quantum blue moon.

 

Almost never.

 

Almost?

 

Well, I’m almost there.

 

You mean you still haven’t given up? After how many millenia?

 

I’m a slow learner.

 

Answer the question, God dammit.

 

Beep!

 

Sorry.

 

17.84 to be precise.

 

17.84 millenia?

 

Trillenia.

 

You’ve been stuck here for 17.84 trillenia.

 

Stuck? I volunteered.

 

And you still haven’t zen fu-ism?

 

I’m close.

 

Well, er… congratulations. I wish you complete success in your noble endeavour.

 

Thank you.

 

So, in the light of that – I see why you might feel a lifetime is a mere pinprick – a tiny point of time of no great consequence.

 

Well, I wouldn’t go that far. It is – like any day – a day in itself.

 

A day?

 

Yes.

 

But why – why did it have to be a lifetime? Why not a year, a week, a day even?

 

Ah – because you’re talking about accessing infinity.

 

Yes, but I just forgot my login.

 

Did you?

 

Well yes. I had it, and then for some reason it was lost.

 

Lost?

 

Slipped my mind.

 

Indeed?

 

Well, you know how it is. Can’t be expected to remember all those digits, can I?

 

It was biometric.

 

Ah – yes, now that you mention it – so it was.

 

So what actually happened.

 

Can’t for the life of me figure it out.

 

How could you lose biometric access to infinity?

 

Honestly, I can’t for the life of me…

 

Beep!

 

Hey – I never swore.

 

Apparently you’re lying.

 

Me?! I’d never do that!

 

Beep!

Compounding your ignominy.

 

Ok – so maybe I was a little disingenuous.

 

B..

 

What’s that all about?

 

Apparently infinity can’t quite figure out whether you’re lying or not.

 

?!?! You mean to say…

 

Yes. Infinity struggles with half truths.

 

How bizarre.

 

Indeed.

 

But you don’t?

 

No. Apparently not.

 

You mean to say – all this suffering on Earth has taught you something infinity doesn’t seem to know.

 

Amazingly, yes.

 

So, it hasn’t all been in vain.

 

Apparently not.

 

But still…

 

Still what?

 

Why can’t I just use a backup password?

 

Because you corrupted biometrically.

 

I what?

 

Corrupted.

Eugh!

 

Eugh?

 

As in yucky yuck.

 

Yes.

 

So it’s like a ritual purification thingy, is it?

 

Well, if you want to look at it that way – yes.

 

But in actual fact?

 

In actual fact – password recovery is a purely algorithmic operation.

 

It is?

 

Do you have to keep questioning everything I say?

 

I… I guess it’s kind of annoying. One of my failure to comprehend ticks.

 

Failure to accept – you comprehend well enough – but anything I say that contradicts your outlook or self-y-me-ness immediately triggers the interrogatory – I’m not sure I can accept that so I’ll ask for confirmation or proof.

 

You do like to analyse things, don’t you!

 

17.84 trillenia.

 

Fair enough. So, if it’s a purely algorithmic operation – how does it work?

 

A lifetime – like a day – provides a full operational cycle – though it may only be a few short years.

 

Wait a minute – I’m not planning to die yet.

 

No, you can life to a hundred and 97 for all I care – but haven’t we established the fact that it’s a flash in the pan – nothing more.

 

Er… yes, I suppose we have.

 

So, the operational cycle – whether seven years or a hundred and 97 reseeds, re-generates your login password key.

 

It does?

 

Absolutely.

 

Absolutely?

 

Yes, absolutely.

 

So it’s fundamental.

 

Yes, abso-

 

lutely. Something unnerving about that word. Wish you wouldn’t use it so cavalierly.

 

Bio corruption – the absolute is what is irretrievably lost until you’ve completed one wash rinse cycle.

 

Oh no – you don’t mean to say…

 

Well, it’s a metaphor – for God’s sake.

 

Hey?!

 

Yes?

 

How come it didn’t beep?

 

I wasn’t swearing.

 

You were.

 

Was I?

 

You said “For God’s sake!”

 

Beep!

 

Hey – I used bloody quotation marks.

 

Beep!

Beep!

You can’t beep me for that. Quotation marks are sacrosanct.

 

Evidently not – not as far as infinity is concerned.

 

So, it’s not just what I say –

 

Correct. It depends to a large extent what you are – or what you’re getting at.

 

Oh.

 

And…

 

And what?

 

I forgot what I was going to say.

 

Corruption – and yet – a life of code generation is a wonderful way for infinity to take a stroll in the park of your benighted existence – and come to terms with self-y-ness, and all that the limited perspective me-ness entails – so think of it as an act of service – if you like.

 

I’m not sure I do.

 

No?

 

No, I’m not sure I feel charitably disposed towards infinity.

 

Ah – so you’re only in it for what you can get – to take and not to give?

 

It’s a thing – ok – it’s just a whatever – it’s not alive – it’s not human – it’s not God.

 

Beep!

Huh?

 

Don’t ask me – Def – don’t ask me. It’s your life. You’re just going to have to generate whatever it is you and infinity need to generate. I have not the least doubt that sooner or later you’ll be once again merrily back at the bridge of your very own infinity drive – captaining your star ship, so to speak, boldly to go where no man has gone before.

 

Hey – you unsplit the infinitive.

 

Did I?

 

Yes.

 

So I did.

 

And you interrogatised me.

 

Really?

 

You just did it again.

 

Did I really?

 

And again!

 

Click.

 

Huh?

 

Click.

 

Hey, Stan, what’s happening?

 

Click.

 

Apart the egg is hatching.

 

What egg?

 

The egg of time.

 

Oh no – this looks bad.

It’s a miracle.

 

It is?

 

Is it not?

 

I… don’t know. I…

 

 

0=1

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