The Butterfly Suspect

Q: How the hell can a butterfly flapping it's wings start a hurricane???!

A: Even though I always liked the theory of the butterfly effect as it pertains to chaos theory and theoretical time travel, the reality of it appeared to be much less enthralling.

I was fortunate enough to spend several years in Brazil, and spent most of my time with a tribe of sweaty, caniballistic descendants of the Tupinambá tribe, conducting experiments to investigate Lorenz's famous theory. We captured several million butterflies over the course of several years and couldn't even get one to so much as move a blade of grass, or scare an old lady on her death-bed, let alone disturb weather patterns in a distant country. It's actually amazing how lame and powerless butterflies are!

Truth be told, all we did was prove that the odds of a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil and causing a Tornado in Texas are several quadrillions to one.

Time went by, but I never quite forgot about the butterfly effect. One morning earlier this year I awoke in a cold sweat from a dream which depicted giant butterflies attacking tribal villagers with chainsaws and I realised I had to resolve the issue.

I tracked down Lorenz, and, completely unannounced, visited him in his small, but well-guarded, Swiss chalet. When he opened the door, I asked almost exactly the question you dropped into my inbox, dear reader, with a couple of extra expletives added in for dramatic effect.

Lorenz studied me for a long time, scratching his stupid spotted nose with one hand and patting his shiny bald forehead with the other. Then he said, "fine", dragged me inside by my lapels, grabbed a butterfly from his in-house enclosure and took me to his time-travel room.

We went back to the dawn of time. Lorenz exited the time machine, and before I could even start to think about the wonderous prehistoric world before me, he let the butterfly go, stepped back inside and took us both back to 2009.

Well you could knock me over with a feather (that does not relate to the theory!). The recalcitrant twatt had caused the current global economic cirsis. Yes, that's right, before we got into that confounded time machine, everyone was happy and rich, and humanity had finally found a perfect harmony with nature.

And everyone was getting laid.

Thanks very much, Lorenz! Must be a real joy to be right!