Chapter Forty-Two by Cyrus Keith, Author of Unalive

For those few of you who have not read The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, be warned: What follows is a major spoiler. Six times nine equals forty-two. When I got my brain wrapped around that, my mouthful of cola flew out my nose.

Of course, those of you who haven't read The Hitchhiker's Guide have no idea what I'm talking about, and that's fine. To be frank, some of you who have read it still don't know what I'm talking about. Which is fine. Let me explain it, then.

I first read Mr. Adam's trilogy of five books when it was still a trilogy of three books. The other two came out long before I figured out that six times nine equals forty-two. (Hold on a minute, I'm getting to it, all you math whizzes out there).

My first mistake was thinking that the statement had anything to do with mathematics. It doesn't. I can hear the steam hissing from the algebra professors' ears now. Forget math for a minute. Okay, for a second.

We all know that six times seven equals forty-two, mathematically. And here's how the number forty-two figures in our explanation. An ancient race of pan-dimensional beings built a super-computer to find "the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything." After mulling over the situation for a billion or so years, the computer blew its nose, broke wind, and spouted the Answer: "Forty-Two." It then fell upon the ancient race of pan-dimensional beings to come up with some kind of sense from this. The super-computer in question suggested that the pan-dimensional beings were so confused only because they didn't know the Ultimate Question to the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. It could design another super-fangly computer to deduce this, and of course, it would only take another billion or so years to figure out. In the meantime, the agreed upon question was "How many roads must a man walk down?" Of course. Forty-two. Hallelujah, we have our question, and our answer! Right? Wrong-O!

Okay, here's the cool part: We remove the mathematics from the equation. For those of you already ahead of me, slow down for those of us who just aren't there yet, okay? People stress out so much over what life means, and if there's more. I just want to put as many psychiatrists out of work as I can here. How many of you can look around you and say for a certainty that your life makes perfect sense, and you can understand everything that has happened to you? Are you getting it yet? Let me illustrate.

My older son has had seven major spinal surgeries. We lost him on the table three times, and he remains severely handicapped from the genetic disorder that twisted his spine and threatened to crush his heart with his own rib cage. My younger daughter has a rare form of epilepsy that should have taken her life before she was five. I spent time in jail for a crime of which I am innocent. My father, older brother and younger sister have all gone, taken before their time by cancer or heart failure. Numerous times throughout my life, all rights and odds, I should have been killed. Drowning, asphyxiation, shooting, cutting, hey, folks, I've been through it. Tell me what makes sense out of all that. I won't even go through the litany of my own surgeries. I have precious friends among my comrades at the Muse who make my list look like a child's vaccinations.

Now, I'm not here to complain. I know that, in the grand scheme of Life, the Universe, and Everything, six times nine equals forty-two, and it's not up to me to make sense of it. I have the life I have, and you have yours. We are all who we are from the lives we experience and how we handle the curve balls the Universe throws at us. And whether we have our faith on which to lean, or no faith to which to adhere, the bottom line is the same.

So stop freaking out trying to make sense of things. Take each year, each month, each day, each breath and make it count for what you can. Be the best person you can be.

Might as well fill your glass, raise a toast and love it. Because six times nine equals forty-two.

In the second installment of The NADIA Project, the potential stakes are raised even higher. The lab where Nadia was built is no more. But when The Pinnacle strikes back at the government agencies trying to crack its secrets, a horrible truth emerges: The evil cabal of kingmakers is still building living weapons of mass destruction somewhere on the globe.

Jon Daniels and Nadia Velasquez must find the lab and stop it before a new wave of terror erupts across the world. In order to succeed, though, they must get through The Pinnacle's most deadly weapon: Jenna Paine. 

All who stand between evil and the innocent are two ancient warriors, a misfit genius, a rogue FBI agent, and a living antimatter bomb named NADIA.

Buy Unalive:  https://museituppublishing.com/bookstore2/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=70&category_id=25&keyword=Unalive&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1

Connect with Cyrus:  www.facebook.com/cyrus.keith


NOTE:  I've reviewed Unalive over at Rochelle's Reviews.  Hop on over to see what I thought of it.  http://rochellesreviews.blogspot.com/2011/10/unalive-by-cyrus-keith.html