WHEN THEY SURFACE (September 9, 2000)

Nuclear submarines purportedly stay under the surface most of the time, but when they surface, which they do for the briefest of times, they send a spurt of coded information to their headquarters. They probably get something in return and dive into the deeps once again. Tons of information are compressed in those intense moments of communication. Whenever I see crazy people in the street, crazy people who are dying to say everything they know in just one spurt, I remember the story about nuclear submarines. The message perforce appears somewhat garbled: “Grmblphushtssumpht!” The whole thing in one single word. And it is not even coded.