How the World Was Saved
A machine that can make anything beginning with N
FOUR LINES
- The machineI know what Nothing is. Look upon your world for the last time, gentlemen.
- KlapauciusStop! I take it all back! Don’t do Nothing!
- The machineSorry. No zits.
- KlapauciusPerhaps they won’t notice.
HOW IT IS MADE
This film is made by subtraction. Every thing in Trurl’s world has a drawing and a sound: the zits twinkle, the worches hold a chord on the horizon, the pritons chirp, the gruncheons grunt, the targalisks ratchet. Lem never says what these creatures are, so the film does not either.
When the machine does Nothing, each thing is removed in turn. Its drawing becomes a hole of black, starred nothingness. Its sound stops and does not come back. The whole soundtrack drops out for a seventh of a second, and the picture blinks dark for one frame.
The holes are kept in the world’s own coordinates, so they stay in every later shot, and they eat the end title too. By the last scene the room is quiet: the creature sounds that filled the first shot are gone, and the closing tune plays with every third note missing.
AFTER THE OTHER FOUR FILMS
The earlier films added: a kingdom, a world, a story inside a story, a feeling copied to every neighbour. This one takes away. Klapaucius asks for Nothing as a trick in an argument, and the machine treats the word as a command it can run.
FOR THE BENCH
Keep your things in an array and draw them each frame. Removing one is things.splice(i, 1), and from then on it is never drawn again. Now make the removal leave a mark: push a hole into a second array that is never emptied. What in your sketch is like the zits, something you can delete but not rebuild?
Narration and dialogue paraphrase Stanisław Lem, “How the World Was Saved,” The Cyberiad. Drawn after the plates of the N machine. Download the film.
THE SCRIPT
TRURL'S MACHINE
Narrator. Trurl built a machine that could make anything, so long as it started with N.
Trurl. Needles.
Trurl. Nails.
Trurl. Nankeen.
Trurl. A nut. A nest.
Trurl. A nautilus. A newt. A nettle.
Trurl. Natrium.
The machine. Never heard of it.
Trurl. It is only sodium!
The machine. Sodium starts with S. I work only in N.
Trurl. Then make Night.
THE TEST
Narrator. He praised it to Klapaucius for so long that Klapaucius asked to test it himself.
Trurl. Be my guest. But it has to start with N.
Klapaucius. Nature.
NATURE
Trurl. Nature to a tee, admit it!
Klapaucius. That mob? You call that Nature?
NEGATIVE
Klapaucius. Negative.
Trurl. What on earth is Negative?
Klapaucius. The opposite of positive, of course.
Klapaucius. Well. Let us say it is.
NOTHING
Klapaucius. Now the third. Machine, do Nothing.
Klapaucius. It sits there. I have won.
Trurl. You told it to do nothing, and it is doing nothing.
Klapaucius. Not nothing. Nothing. Nonexistence itself.
The machine. I know what Nothing is. Look upon your world for the last time, gentlemen.
THE UNMAKING
Removed, in order: nails, needles, nankeen, nut, nest, nautilus, newt, nettle, gruncheons, targalisks, shupops, calinatifacts, thists, worches, pritons, brashations, plusters, laries, zits.
Trurl. If only nothing bad comes of this.
Klapaucius. Don’t worry. It only takes away what starts with N. Which is nothing much.
The machine. I began with N out of habit. To destroy is easier than to create.
Klapaucius. Stop! I take it all back! Don’t do Nothing!
AFTER
Klapaucius. Where are the gruncheons? Where are my pritons? Where are the zits?
The machine. They are in Z. I can give you back nonsense and nausea. Nothing else.
Klapaucius. I want my zits!
The machine. Sorry. No zits.
The machine. Look how full of holes your world is now. This is your work, envious one.
Klapaucius. Perhaps they won’t notice.
THE WORLD SINCE
Narrator. Klapaucius went home. And the world has stayed full of holes ever since, exactly as it was when the machine was stopped.