Disclaimer: I do not own Numb3rs
One Shot I wrote for the hypnoweb-numb3rs competition around the word "Série" which in French mean "Series, Serial, Sequence, TV show, Row…." I decided to translate to improve my English.
So, feel free to review the story and the English. I will be very pleased by all your comments.
Small Serial Dramas For Don Eppes
He sighed, letting nonchalantly fall his hand and the remote control that seemed grafted on against the armrest of the sofa, despaired because the television only offered him an umpteenth cop show : He would be so pleased to think of something else than his job. Weary, he did not either glance toward the door that opened on his rain-drenched brother.
- Don, Charlie said surprised to see his brother in precise position where he had left him in the morning, you are still here?
Don imperceptibly shook his head, eyes focused on the magical skylight, and the younger followed one instant the direction of this gaze hypnotized on an incoherent scrolling of pictures which stopped shortly when his channel-hopper of brother stopped on the sports channel.
"And Now, the seeded player Wilfried Tsongua…."
- Don, his brother grumbled, interrupting the ecstatic lyricism of the sports commentators, I wanted to watch the P vs nP debate on "Mathematicians Idol".
- Can't you record it, Don moaned, I look at tennis.
- I point out to you that it is my television, Charlie became indignant. Be going to look at tennis on your television!
- My flat is always uninhabitable, Don reminded, impassive.
- And why don't you go to look at Robin's television? Charlie cried.
He loved his brother but, for three days when his flat had been stricken and they lived together in their childhood home, he sometimes wondered how they had succeeded in avoiding the fratricide during the dozen years when they had lived together under this same roof.
- Robin and I, we had an argument, Don confessed upset.
Not amazing, you're so boring Charlie thought but he just retorted:
- Find a way she forgives you!
His tone was dry, his voice tensed and the proposal unrealistic; also, Don made a grimace by confessing:
- I said to her the skirt she wore emphasized her rebounded backside!
- Ouch, Charlie agreed, you'd better remain discreet during some days!
But the genius quickly returned to his idea and, diplomat, he tried to negotiate:
- You could record tennis!
- To look at your math stuff? No way!
- So why don't you go for a jaunt during this time, this would change your mind!!
- It's raining, "mycaroutoforder" Don monosyllabically mumbled, and Charlie had to make an effort of interpretation to remember his brother's car was in repairing.
- What about clean the house before dad comes back, Charlie still proposed.
He knew this proposal had not a chance to trigger off an unbridled enthusiasm, but, short of arguments, Charlie tried to create diversion while, slyly, he got closer to his brother. Suddenly, of a lively gesture, he tried to take him the remote control of hands.
But Don was quicker and grabbed firmly Charlie's arm.
-Please Charlie! And plea sound like an order, I had a difficult day!
- Difficult? Charlie exclaimed while he started a vain struggle to recover the scepter of the television kingdom, but you've spent all day long in front of TV!
- I take a vacation for the first time in three years and it's pouring, I call this a difficult day!
Charlie had succeeded in freeing and moved back carefully, massaging his painful wrist. No chance that a physical conflict against his brother turns in his favor and, rancorous, he decided to take revenge by using the recent revelations his brother's colleagues disclosed under a veil of absolute secrecy.
-You took a vacation, didn't you? He insinuated.
- What do you mean? Don coldly asked.
- I was called to the FBI this morning I talked with your colleagues, the younger went on.
- And? Don still asked.
But it was bluff for bluff because he knew his weakness was revealed, and, cruelly Charlie played his trump card:
- And they asked me if you got bored not too much during your suspension time.
- I can really trust in them, Don blew up.
- Don't blame them; they are worried after - wait that I remember used terms - « your series of nervous breakdown » of last Friday.
- Okays, Don granted repentant, I perhaps a bit lost temper!
- Just a bit? Charlie inquired ironically.
- Yes, just a bit! But the bureaucrats who are my superiors can't understand it is sometimes necessary to jostle people if we want results…
- You mean by terrorizing the witnesses, Charlie asked.
- Liars…
- The experts…
- Bunglers...
- And your whole team…
- My agents! Don became lively by straighten up in the armchair; My agents do not play the petanque (1) until the bunglers of the laboratory finish their messed up tests. My agents search new lanes, others …
- Perhaps, Charlie interrupted, but according to «Your agents» it is mainly when you threaten the coffee machine with your weapon that your superiors decided a little break would be good for you.
Don threw him a glance as black as the drink he was so much very fond:
- It served me a decaf! He thundered.
And as his brother slowly shook the head without adding anything Don finally confessed:
- I perhaps, cracked up.
He had taken his head in his two hands and seemed totally depressed.
- Do you remind, Don carried on in a tired voice, when you spoke to us about the theory that any event having the slightest possibility of turning bad will make it one day
- Finagle law, approved the mathematician not angry any more facing the obvious depression of his brother.
- As you want. Personally I call this the "hassle maximization theory"! And, last week I think that a supernatural force persevered in proving me its reliability! And things always happen in a row: look, I am in leave and it is raining!
- A misfortune sequential law is not statistic….
- Charlie, we are in May in Los Angeles!
- Okays, the genius agreed, maybe you are in the epicenter of serial dramas. But you know what they say: After rain com…
Charlie stopped his optimistic sentence, seeing a murdered flash in his brother's look; and as he also read despair in these dark eyes, Charlie put down two comforting hands on his elder's weary shoulders:
- All right, he resumed, what we are going to do it is that you, you record me my program and me, and I am going to find a solution for your bad luck.
And, getting ready to go out under the skeptical eye of Don, he added:
- Trust me; I will be back before one hour.
….
Charlie was triumphant when he came back three quarters later, a cheeky smile on his face and a packet present in hands. Facing his brother he gave him the packet, and his smile became brighter as Don, having opened it, looked at its contents without understanding.
- A cat, he finally choked, a black cat?
- Please, don't be superstitious on top of all this.
- Ok Charlie, what do you expect me to do with this kitten? Don asked teasing the adorable little face of the stuffed animal.
- Finagle, that his name. You know, the genius started to explain, your "hassle maximization theory", one of its most known applications is that a toast will always fall the buttered side down ;
A smile reached his lips as he added:
- But, experts tried to resolve this problem by basing their research on a paradox: The catlike-Toastic paradox.(2)
Here Charlie stopped to make sure of his brother's attention, and, crossing his thunderstruck expression he found difficult to contain his laugh by resuming:
- In effect, as toast will always fall with the buttered side down and as we all know cats always land on their feet; so what would happen if we stick a slice of toast with butter to a cat's back and we throw it to the air? The cat, by law, will land on its feet, but the toast, by law too, will land on the butter's side. Against this problem of physics laws, the nature chooses the best way of taking a solution: the cat-toast assembling may just levitate in the air.
- So what? Don asked, hesitant about bursting out laughing or calling for an immediate psychiatric committal for his brother.
- So, as you seem to be victim of the Finagle law, I thought a cat could reverse the tendency and carry you happiness.
I wonder, Don joked after an instant of cogitation, if this would have not been simpler to convert me to marmalade!
Charlie had a laugh echoing with the first true smile of Don for several days. Both of them were frankly laughing in the couch when the younger suddenly got up.
- Look, he cried unbeliever, the rain stopped!
Their two alarmed looks considered one instant the innocent bowl of hairs that had shyly curled up against Don's knees, and was whirring in his quiet sleep.
- So, Charlie finally continued, now your problems appear to be resolved, we just have to search for a program we can watch together.
He was leafing through the TV program when a teasing expression came on his face and he finally proposed:
- What about CBS, they broadcast a new show: "Serial Dramas"!
1. Just because I am not sure everybody understands what Pétanque is (are you?), a little definition:
The game of boules, otherwise known as pétanque, is perhaps the sport that is closest to French hearts. Similar to British lawn bowling or Italian bocce, this Marseille version is traditionally played with metallic balls on a dirt surface beneath plane trees, with a glass of pastis at hand. The object of the game is to throw your balls — usually with somewhat of an arched back-spin — so that they land closer to the small object ball (cochonnet ) than those of your opponent, or strike and drive the object ball toward your other balls and away from your opponent's. The only really essential equipment is a set of three steel boules for each competitor (and obviously a cochonnet).
I agree The FBI team playing Pétanque is not a very realistic scene but that make me laugh a lot…. ("Peuchère, Colby, Do you shoot or place?").
2. Complex Catlike-Toastic (Complexe feline-tartinique): read (with a big mad laugh) on Uncyclopédia.