Lotsa Luck,
Mysterious Mike

Myster Mike,

Ah, now this is a riddle I am well primed to embrace! Bear this to mind, Gentle Readers: not a clue is offered, no sign of the location of this Mysterious Mike. Furthermore, I have arranged for Sang to utterly obfuscate the header information from the e-mail, including all Internet Protocol addresses. I am flying blind, so as to speak, without benefit of instrumentation or the good gentlefolk of air traffic comptrollers— and yet, without a doubt, I shall correctly identify the current whereabouts of this message's author. This, my friends and admirers, shall be a great and terrible display of the logical induction.

I think know upon that great monkey-mind, Sher-Lock Homes, who uttered time and again that "After disposing of all which is impossible, that which remains, regardless of how improbable, must to be the case." In this mode, then, first is to dispose of deduction entirely: I shall not speak of what is, but in deference to Heisenberg and his Quantum Mechanical Cohort, shall dwell upon what probably is, or rather, what probably is not. Let us abandon the valid in favor of the cogent and move forward.

And, indeed, in shedding deduction, let is not even nimbly, facilely, slide into induction, but rather take the effort to oppose the reason de rigeur altogether. Let us not precede from what we know, but rather from what we do not know. For it stands that if we examine what we know and remove the impossible, what remains is Truth, then if we examine what we do not know, and remove the possible things which are not the case, then we are similarly left with that slimmest remainder of sophistry's long-division: the Fact of the Matter.

Then to start: as this message is rendered in colloquial English, we can presume that Myster Mike is not a native speaker of some other of the human grunt-tongues. This much is clear, but now our way through the waters becomes dark and muddled. Be grateful, Obscured Readers, that it is a squid— one so conversant with waters darkened— that guides you. For, shall we now presume to assume that because Myster Mike grunts English, that he is squatting on an Eng-o-lish land, such as Rue Brittania, or this Great Continent? No. No, not at all. T'would be far too simple— and it is the obvious answer which is so frequently the reddened hearing set out by the sperm whale, meant to distract and misdirect, like the magicians patter or the angler fish's angle. The two places he must not be are places of clear and present English. Though, so insuissant and cocky a note . . . Rule out the Can-a-dum, Americum and Brittanium, though doubt not that through the veins of Mysterious Mike courses the blood of an English(of-the-speaking)man!

So, thence, we have established that not-being a non-English speaker, Myster Mike must be of here, of the North, or of the Crown. And, establishing he is not respectful and not modest, we know he is neither American nor Canadian, and thus British remains, like and unto Dell the Farmer's stinky cheese, which must be left to stand alone.

"But is this not to the side," you quip, "for you have not been charged to determine the nationality of Myster Mike, but rather his location. What gives, Ferre Calmar? Whatsamatta You?"

Whatsamatta Me, indeed!

Established, there is an Englishman in this world, taunting me. But where? Logic dictates that the Englishman wise enough to avoid my present continent of habitation would be drawn to another vast landmass, far from the oceans which veritably team with my minions, and the minions of my minions, and the minions of my masters. But Myster Mike most surely plays dirty pool, applying a great deal of English to every shot, so as to obfuscate the outcome. As logic dictates the he must cower on the land, I thus know that he must be lounging in the sea. If we examine what we do not know, and remove the possible things which are not the case, then we must be left with what probably must be.

Again, as logic dictates that he would favor floating far from the open sea, rendering himself a pink squidget of lint on the oceans vast blue velvet dress, so to then it must be that he has chosen some land to be near. As logic demands that he would choose a shore with a broad and easy avenue of escape, we know he must have locked himself in a watery cove of difficult passage. Now we grow close, and I can dispense with this tiresome itemization of my process of thinking, and simply let me mind roam out across the surface of the waters, and nearly feel for Mike's presence.

he is Pacific, not Atlantic

he is southerly, like the hawk's handsaw

in Oceania, twixt Hawaii and Papua New Guinea

oh Mike, I feel you in the Marshall Islands

in an atoll

Enewetak? no

Kwajalein? no

like Brittany the Spears, our myster mike, he favors a Bikini

Peek the boo; I do see you.

So, then, we arrive: you, Mysterious Mike, are located in an inflated inert tube within the lagoon of the Bikini Island Atoll. But, at this time, there are two questions far more salient to you:

1. Where is the pod of ravening tiger sharks?
2. Where is the BAND-AID Brand Adhesive Bandage strip you secured over the laceration on your upper left calf?

Question of Bonus: Do you feel the tiny bubbles, Myster Mike?

With Fondest Fare-thee-Wells,
the Giant Squid