Sentence The Sixhundredandeightyeighth

 

Ludmilla Lermontova bounded into the room, her ipad in hand and threw herself down onto the sofa beside Jasmine: "dis you may not want to beleef, my darlink, but I haff cracked it!" and Jasmine stared in astonishment, unused to seeing the normally quiet and reserved Russian archivist and researcher quite so animated; but before she could speak, Ludmilla continued: "no verry easy until you get past zee Firevall – haha! it voss Leedle Leevy who show me, he iss vun verry smerrt cookie to be not eefen vun yet, oy, vot a boy! niet, da, push deez fauxtatoes to vun site, I haff fish suppers for us, mit Irron Brrooo, vare iss Sammy?" and Jasmine explained that her boss had a toothache and had gone to the dentist in Galashiels: "his face was puce," which Ludmilla did not understand until Jasmine explained, but she then brushed it aside as an irrelevance, "all zee more fer us two, iss gute; now but first here," and she produced a set of photographs of Levy with various objects: "iss a model

of zee Earth, und inn ze Ooniverse, see? Leevy made for me, und iff you look close, you see dit it iss not just a physical model, it demonstrates zee stretching off time vot hass been goink on since the very beginnink, you know how ven some substances iss hot, zey also iss soft, und as like mud dry it also creaks? und ice also ven it thaws maybe or under pressure, like you stand upon it on Tveedbenk Pond and CRESH!! SPLESH!! you very vet Jasmine, niet? da! so same as vith Time, it not alvays so stable as Him or Her or whoever Leevy's Creator be intented, niet, still iss in a state off flux, und moving about oh, dis vay und dat vay, but Hey! zee solution she iss simple easy-peasy, so! vaddaya tink?" but stare as she might, Jasmine couldn't see how all the interstices and linkages and spirals and blurs made any sense so she said: "it's like one of Schwitters' Merz-Bilds but without the rhyme or

reason," at which Ludmilla triumphantly slapped her hand down on the arm of the sofa: "you gottit, bebby! you hit de head on de nail, and so kvick, you bin listnin in at de kheyholes again? ach, East, Vest, Spice Best – vevver you're M-16, KBG, CAI or FIB – vunce a Spice Girl alvay a Spice Girl, niet?" and her face took on a vulpine craftiness as she waited for Jasmine's response, while Jasmine

stared hard and harder and then her face split in an enormous grin: "Occam's Fucking Razor!" she blurted out and Ludmilla's eyes were like saucers and her face bloomed with delight: "da, da, da, und fuckin DAAAAAAAAA!"