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PART 1: THE MEETING. Of course, Fortran and Matlab had heard of each other. How could they not
have, given so many mutual friends? Many of those friends thought that they
should meet up. Some even thought they would hit it off. But the common view
was that they would dislike each other. Elderly Fortran, who thought deeply
before even considering to act on something, didn't see much to gain in meeting
Matlab. And Matlab, long the darling of the just-go-for-it crowd, was by now
middle-aged, and saw little benefit in dating at all. But on day, as the joke goes, they both walked into the same bar. Fortran
ambled in slowly carrying a musty book and exuding an air of superiority.
Matlab arrived a bit later and, busy chatting on the phone, did not even notice
Fortran sitting alone in the shadows. But after a while, Matlab did notice
a flickering over in that dark corner of the bar. It was a candle. Intrigued,
Matlab strode towards the light in the darkness. Fortran, as always, was deep in thought. Buried in the book, sure, but more
than that. Fortran had been thinking about this thing for several weeks. And
not just thinking with a single mind, like others in the bar, but at this point
with ten thousand minds. The idea was only now just starting to take shape,
with these many minds and these many hours. Now, Matlab was no fool. Matlab could recognize brilliance when it was sitting
right there, with the candle, the book and the furrowed brow. The rest
of the bar faded away. The music, gone. The conversations, the laughter, the
flirting, the clinking of glasses -- all gone. For Matlab had realized something: Fortran was sexy as hell. So Matlab sat down. And Fortran, to the astonishment of anyone who had been
around for the past half-century, looked up. Wow. In this light, in this
place, at this moment Matlab seemed like an angel descended from heaven. They said very few words. And the words didn't really even matter much. It
was the tone of voice that mattered. The pauses. The crinkling around the
eyes. After a while, Matlab's hand reached for Fortran's. And that was the
start of something new. Something neither expected. Something their friends
could not have imagined, let alone hoped for. NEXT: PART 2, JULIA IS CONCEIVED. |