The Great Prank Day

Svensk text på slutet

Introduction - A Cosmic Farce with a Scanian Twist

What happens when two of Swedens greatest comedic and literary legendsthe bouncy master clown Nils Poppe and the witty, legendary storyteller Fritiof Nilsson Piratenteam up in eternity to save Earth from a severe shortage of proper laughter?

Orbiting comfortably in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way on their binary stars, they look down upon Malmö, Sweden, and realise the locals are laughing in all the completely wrong places. Powered by a bottomless fridge, an endless supply of matjessill (matjes herring), and ten rounds of perfectly chilled snaps (schnapps)from the refreshing Helan (The Whole One) to the hard-hitting Decimen (The Tenth One)the two masterminds plot the ultimate high-speed romp through Malmös streets.

Get ready for The Great Prank Day (Stora Busdagen)a magnificent space saga and time-travelling farce. Featuring floating police cars parked on top of the 82-meter-tall Kronprinsen skyscraper, a glowing Unitarian Universalist chalice replacing the cross on Saint Petris spire, mechanical stink-rats, and a 123-million-kronor racetrack heist funded by the central banks secret accounting discrepancies. It is a world where space is inherently feminist, the police are perpetually chasing the usual suspects, and astronomers blow horns of fire.

Fasten your seatbelts, synchronise your watches to Pulsar Standard Time, and prepare for a brilliant, chaotic mix of cutting-edge astrophysics, sharp satire, and classic Swedish revue!

Cosmic Schnapps-Bubbler
(Melody: Skånska slott och herresäten / "From castles in Scania...")

From Malmös canals to Orions far rim,
Two suns in the sky are shining so grim.
When space vacuum silences stars in the night,
We pour our Scania Schnapps and drink with delight!

On Uranus methane smells just like bad eggs,
The king in the square gets some dye on his pegs.
But here in the dark by the central banks door,
We drink the first rounds till the cosmos splits more!

But Poppe is bouncing, a rubber-ball clown,
He hoists up the coppers far over the town.
On Kronprinsens roof, flashing lights will beam,
For time-travel pranksters who live for the dream!

Let chalices burn up on Saint Petris spire,
And let astronomers blow horns of fire.
Hangovers dont live in the stars timeless space,
So cheers to the Pirate, and womens embrace!
SHORT CHORUS / SHOUT:
SKÅL! (Empty the glass!)
Malmö, August 2026

PROLOGUE
The stage is completely pitch black, except for a dim, atmospheric beam of light (spotlight) illuminating an old wooden bench. On the bench sits Nils Poppe (in his timeless, vibrant form) polishing the glass of a pair of space-binoculars. At the same time, Fritiof Nilsson Piraten stands next to him in his classic hat, with a pen poised in one hand and a frosty, chilled bottle of Skåne Akvavit in the other. In the background, a faint, rhythmic ticking can be heardthe sound of a distant pulsar.

PIRATEN: (Looks out toward the audience with a sly smile)
Ladies, gentlemen... and those of you who have not yet made up your minds in this cosmic eternity. It is said on Earth that it takes one hundred thousand years to travel at the speed of light through the Milky Way. A remarkably poor way to spend your vacation, if you ask me. Especially since SAS doesnt even have cabin service in a vacuum.
(He pours a snaps [shot/schnapps] for both Poppe and himself.)

POPPE: (Jumps up onto the bench like a rubber ball, alert and bursting with energy)
Exactly, Fritiof! No, we took a wormhole straight from the Orion Arm. It took barely one hour. And why all the rush, you may wonder? Well, because we have heard that an utterly extraordinary waste of laughter is going on down there in Malmö. They are laughing in all the completely wrong places.

PIRATEN: (Takes a sip from his glass and nods)
We have been sitting on our suns, gazing down over Stortorget, Pildammarna, and the artificial cliffs in Västra Hamnen. We have seen moralists, police officers constantly chasing the usual suspects, and we have seen a flying bath duck. So we thought: why not make a farce out of the whole thing? A Scanian space saga filled with fubbickar (fools), ålahuen (eel-heads), rotten eggs on Uranus, and a touch of space-feminism.

POPPE: (Gives an elegant salute and smiles with his whole face)
So fasten your seatbelts, dear audience. Let the chalice burn upon Saint Petris spire. Now we turn back the clock to Pulsar Standard Time... and let The Great Prank Day begin!

(Poppe blows a cloud of glittering cosmic stjärnstoft [star-dust] toward the audience, sirens begin to flash blue in the distance, and the curtain rises for Act 1! He empties his own sup [dram/shot of schnapps] in one single gulp.)

Now we take a järn (shot) or more...

Seen from Earth through powerful telescopes, the universe can appear infinite, and travelling from one end to the other would take 120 billion years with one of SASs jet planes, assuming it could fly in a vacuum. Which, of course, it cannot. If it were possible to speed up one of the companys Airbuses and get the aircraft to travel at the speed of light, the travel time would be shortened to 100,000 years. For an impatient Time-traveller, that is a bit too long. Now, people in eternity do not travel that way; instead, they take an appropriate wormhole. Then, even the ends of the Milky Way are just around the corner, and the journey takes a thousandth of a light-yearthat is to say, barely nine Earth hours. Due to the spherical shape of the Milky Way at its centre, it remarkably takes several hours longer to get there. If you feel like travelling to our closest galactic neighbour, Andromeda, it lies 2.5 million light-years away, and you have to count on more than a days shaky journey through a suitable wormhole.

Now, it was not this distance that Nils Poppe was contemplating as he sat on his star. Despite his greatness, Poppe did not belong to any of the brightest giant stars. He was never a person on Earth who sought the blinding light. His binary star, Poppea A and Poppea B, lay in the Orion Armthe very same spiral arm where our own solar system is located. There are many yellow and white stars there, comfortably far from the violent centre of the galaxy. A quiet corner of the Milky Way, where the light does not drown in the residual noise of the Big Bang. What he was contemplating was a play that his good friend, Fritiof Nilsson Piraten, had sent him telepathically. It was a real tall tale about a high-speed romp through Malmö. Piraten hadnt written the original version. Apparently, the author was unknown, and Piraten wondered if he and Poppe could adapt the text and stage it as a farce for Poppeas traditional New Years revue, about one Earth year from now. Poppes two nearly identical suns, one golden and the other a faint blue-white, slowly orbited each other.

Piratens star, Stella Fabulosa, just over 4 light-years away, was a five-minute trip via the nearest wormhole, if one insists on expressing it in Earthly terms. The significantly faster telepathic route took only a jiffyexactly one-hundredth of a second. It didnt even echo in ones skull, which could happen during long-distance calls across the Milky Way. Dont ask me how it works. It works perfectly if you are on the same wavelength.

Albert Einstein called the phenomenon spooky action at a distance. So it works perfectly to carry out conversations telepathically in full duplex, thinking over one another, so to speak.

For several Earth weeksor terser (thirds) as they were called herethe farce had been taking shape, and a finished synopsis existed in both of their heads. Now they needed to meet and polish the details before it was time to choose who would have the honour of being in the ensemble, for you should know that alongside Chaplin and Mark Twain, there were no comparable guiding stars in eternity. Even greats like Harpo Marx and Laurel and Hardy would travel across half the galaxy to get a role in their revue.

It was time for a sillabit (herring-bite), as Scanians call it when they want to have a schnapps or threepreferably more if available. It is the most creative way to write scripts, at least if they are to be any good. So now Piraten was heading to Poppea, and he arrived exactly at 16:75 PST, which is the GMT of eternity. The gentlemen were not just going to eat the matjes herring that Poppe had acquired from a travelling peddler who bounced between the suns like a rubber ball loaded with delicacies from Earth. Poppe already had well-chilled Skåne Akvavit, so while they thoroughly enjoyed their meal, they discussed their revue project. Anyone can figure out that you need a substantial refrigerator on a star. Poppes was large enough to function as a living room and was bursting with treats. Due to the distances in the cosmos, planning is key. To be caught without snaps when guests arrive is a tragedy greater than Oedipus Rex.

Since one does not get intoxicated in the cosmos the same way as on Earth, you can handle many snaps and grow happier and happier. The word hangover does not even exist in the telepathic vocabulary. If one wants to describe the condition that only exists on Earth, one is forced to think in multiple sentences.

With the first bite of matjes, they took Helan (The Whole One), the snaps that start the party. This was followed in rapid succession by Halvan (The Half One), which, according to old Earth tradition, is taken quite soon after Helan (The Whole One) so that the poor thing wont be lonely. After slipping in another bite of herring, Poppe and Piraten each took their Tersen (The Third One), which got its name from the Latin tertius, meaning the third, proving that the education level among heavy drinkers was high in the old days.

A bit inspired, Piraten pulled out paper and pen, which is necessary even in the cosmos. Poppe opened another tin of matjes fillets and unscrewed the cap of a Danish porsebrännvin (sweet gale akvavit) that both appreciated. At the top of the paper, Piraten wrote: FUBBICKAR OCH ÅLAHUEN LIT GRANN FRÅN OVAN (Fools and Eel-heads a Little Bit from Above), which was the revues working title. While emptying his glass and singing the evenings shortest snaps song NU! (NOW!)Piraten wrote down item number one, the revues first act:

SEX DOLL. From Scaniaplatsen, a swimming area with artificial cliffs made of large stone blocks, Jeppe launches a naked sex doll with a burning candle strategically placed, and then calls a dozen moral guardians who rush out. Then he contacts Sydsvenskan, Expressens local editor, and a few bloggers. To ensure no one thinks its a hoax, he attaches a photo with Turning Torso in the background. If the scene looks comical in Västra Hamnenwith moralists, journalists, bloggers, and horny men fighting over a sex doll with the Öresund Bridge in the backgroundit is nothing compared to what Poppe can achieve with half the universe as a backdrop.

Then came the middle snaps. To Kvarten (The Quarter One), the fourth in order, Poppe and Piraten created the act named The Flying Goose. In the real Västra Hamnen, the character Jöns takes the elevator 200 meters up, unlawfully scrambles onto the roof, and throws out a fairly large inflatable bath duckthere are no yellow bath geesewith wings, which lands right in the middle of Masttorget and causes a scene. The media arrives just in time for the bright yellow duck, which plops down with a burning cigar in its beak. Since smoking is now banned in these kinds of public places, the police also have to move from Scaniaplatsen, where they have already detained several people for rioting and disorderly conduct. Right as the police arrive, the large cigar explodes, scattering graffiti across half the square. The police cordoned off the square and contacted the National Bomb Squad, which deployed.

The two authors laughed heartily at the inner vision of the havoc in Västra Hamnen and emptied their glasses. In quick succession came Kvinten (The Fifth One), snaps number five, and with it, the next act.

Meanwhile, the character Truls has made his way to Stapelbäddens skatepark, half a kilometre away from the tumult at Masttorget, and releases a few electric, highly illusory mechanical rats that naturally cause panicespecially since they leave behind what looks like rat droppings but smells like mög (crap), as Scanians say about things that smell like shit. In this case, the rat poop was spiked with butyric acid, filling the skatepark with a stench of foot sweat, vomit, and rancid butter. The place was emptied of skaters by the time the police arrived, after having arrested some suspects for the bomb attack at Masttorget. The usual suspects, as the term goes, consist of people with the wrong hair and eye colour. The problem with this scene in a space setting is that bad smells do not work in a vacuum. Not even thioacetone, the universes most foul-smelling chemical, would be noticed. On Earth, the human nose detects the substance at an incredibly low concentration of 0.02 parts per billion. Even if you placed a whole bucket among the farce audience on Poppea, they wouldnt smell the stench. They had to have the actors wave signs that read It stinks! That sort of thing usually worked.

Now it was time for the sixth snaps, called Sexten (The Sixth One), or on Earth, Chocken (The Shock), because some down there began to get properly drunk by this point. First, Poppe and Piraten lined their stomachs with a bite of herring, new potatoes, and sour cream with chopped chives. The new potatoes were bought frozen from Earth. The sour cream came from one of Poppeas planets, whose evergreen meadows were filled with black-and-white space cows. The chives came from there too, and Poppe received deliveries twice a week.

Inspired by the cold drink, the next prank took shape 800 meters away from the now-cordoned-off skatepark, where the police were busy gathering up new usual suspects. Here, the character Mårten brought The Knotted GunCarl Fredrik Reuterswärds sculpture at Suellshamnento life. Contrary to its pacifist message, Mårten loaded the muzzle with a massive firework piece and set it off so hard that the windows in the Exchange Building on the other side of the canal rattled. The bang was heard over half the city, and the muzzle spewed fire. Naturally, some new usual suspects were caught by the police. Poppe and Piraten had a blast, and if the audience laughed even half as much, the revue would be a massive success.

The inspiration-boosting middle snaps concluded with Septen (The Seventh One), the seventh, which also gets its name from Latin. 400 meters away lay the next act featuring the fat and unpopular Karl X Gustav riding his horse right in the middle of Stortorget. The hooligan who stole Scania from Denmark has been given a place of honour on what was once Europes largest square. That alone is worth mocking. Many ideas had flowed at the herring table, ranging from putting rockets under the bronze horses hooves so the wretched thing would fly away and land in the Öresund, tojust like Victor Lustig did with the Eiffel Towerselling the statue as scrap to a scrap dealer. However, the snaps tickled their throats, and both ideas fell through. Outside Poppea, there was only black space, which didnt work as well as water for letting a horse and rider drown. Sawing down and carrying away a statue was probably hard to make an audience laugh at. On the other hand, it ought to work to have some of the girls in the ensemble paint the womens rights violator and his horse pink and write feminist slogans on the statue.

Eternity is full of feminists. From pioneers like Enheduanna, the worlds first known author by name, who lived 2200 years before our era; Christine de Pizan, also an author, who in 1405 wrote The Book of the City of Ladies; and Olympe de Gouges, who in the late 1700s was the voice of the French Revolution; to Emmeline Pankhurst and all the suffragettes who through civil disobedience built the platform for modern feminism. Among the stars, women no longer need to be afraid to assert their equal rights. No one can kill them anymore, and with that, the power of the strong falls. Therefore, one can safely claim that space is feminist, because all the women who have lived in eternity, long before Pankhurst, have joined in.

They will cheer, and the male audience wont dare do anything but laugh along, Poppe grinned, pouring an extra snaps that doesnt actually belong to the Swedish arsenal but is imported from Denmark. Poppe ignored the fact that it is called en lille en (a little one) over there and poured a generous glass for Piraten and himself. In this context, it must not be forgotten that when the police arrived, the revues girls had, of course, bolted, so the police had to settle for the usual suspectsin this case, some women with the wrong eye and hair colour, paired with a keffiyeh.
Spontaneously, while Poppe and Piraten emptied the big little one, a real schoolboy prank emerged 200 meters away at the Mello Yello bar on Lilla Torg. Jeppe had learned the technique of ventriloquism, which does not mean talking with ones stomach at all. To succeed at this without moving his lips, Jeppe kept his mouth in a fixed, slight smile and let his tongue and soft palate do all the work under strict diaphragmatic and breathing control. Since the letters B, P, and M require lip movements, he replaced the sounds with D, T, and N. He directed his gaze intensely at the victim to create a psychological illusion, making everyone around believe the voice came from the target and not from Jeppe himself.

Dree whisky dor everyone. Its on ne! Just ask at the dar and dut it on Todde, Jeppe said loudly, projecting the sound toward a poor guy who was heard shouting: Free whisky for everyone. Its on me! Just ask at the bar and put it on Tobbe. Jeppe had overheard the name. Every patron in the nearly full pub rushed to the bar so as not to miss a glass. During the fight that broke out when the staff realised Tobbe had no intention of paying, they called for the police, who were not far away. Since the majority of the pub-goers had the wrong colour for both their eyes and hair, it was no problem rounding up a few usual suspects.

To Orten (The Eighth One), the eighth snaps, which had now swapped the amber hue of sweet gale for the light straw-yellow colour of Skåne Akvavit, came an act that, in some eyes on Earth, might seem blasphemous. But in secular eternity, it is a safe bet. With the benefit of hindsight, no one has found any of the tens of thousands of named gods, goddesses, and supernatural beings since prehistoric times, no matter how much they have searched among the stars. If you include all local household gods, nature spirits, and animistic ghosts, the figure quickly lands at several million, so someone should have been found. From over a billion prophets, saints, priests, priestesses, and shamans throughout human history, not a peep is heard. Perhaps they are all hiding in black holes, because they arent visible in the observable universe.

When the legislation changed in 1951, and it became legal to leave the state church without having to join another approved denomination, Piraten seized the opportunity and immediately left the Church of Sweden in protest. He was probably regarded as an atheist on Earth and lived literally as one. Despite leaving the church, Piraten is buried in Ravlunda Churchyard on Österlen. His legendary gravestone inscription stating that Here under are the ashes of a man who had the habit of putting everything off until tomorrow. However, he mended his ways at the very last and truly died on Jan 31, 1972 completely lacks Christian symbols. His own name isnt even written on the stone, yet people still make pilgrimages there.

The great humanist Poppe was not an actively religious man on Earth, but paradoxically became deeply intertwined with Christian mysticism and theology when he played the jester in Ingmar Bergmans film The Seventh Seal. His last words on Earth, which also stand on his gravestone, reflect his humour and humanity rather than religion: Send regards and say that I am lying in Allerum Churchyard. Poppes stone also lacks any church symbols, so he did not hypocritically pretend.
Strengthened by the eighth snaps, they agreed on a gentle swipe at the Swedish church in tune with eternity. What in Malmö would fit better than Saint Petri Church, 800 meters away from their latest mischief? Had they wanted to be truly cautious, they could have swapped the spires cross for a wrought-iron church rooster or an elk, which Trollsmedjan offered on its website. They delivered worldwide, which meant it was perfectly fine to order to Poppea via DHLs cosmic division.

Replacing the cross with a talking automated muezzin doll that called for prayer after the first bite during Orten (The Eighth One), as Piraten suggested, would admittedly have been an ecumenical gesture, but it didnt feel right. It was like changing suits. Instead, they settled on Unitarian Universalisma philosophy that does not require its members to profess a specific creed or doctrine. Instead, members are united by a common search for spiritual growth and a strong commitment to social justice. Within UU, there is no requirement to believe in a personal God, the Bible, or any specific afterlife. The community welcomes Christians, Jews, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists, and humanists. What holds the movement together is not what you believe, but how you treat each other and the world. Both Poppe and Piraten found that strong commitment to social justice appealing. Swapping the cross for the UU symbola circle with a flaming chalicefelt neither blasphemous nor offensive. That image ought to be something every Christian could sympathise with.

The dilemma was that the spires cross sat 105 meters up, and even though the eternally young Poppe could still climb like a mountain goat, he didnt want to tempt fate. A Time-traveller cannot die a second time, but nothing is preventing them from falling from a great height. Some have done so and caused quite a stir when a shocked environment found that the person who fell was completely unharmed, save for their clothes, which naturally were both soiled and torn.

Repeating the act on Poppeas stage is simple. No one gets hurt if you fall onto a suns gaseous surface. When it came to the live performance in Malmö, there was Coola Ola, who back during his time on Earth had worked as an acrobat at Cirkus Brazil Jack at the beginning of the last century. Ola was small in stature and nimbler than a monkey. Carl Rhodin, alias Brazil Jack, threw an unpeeled banana to the top of a climbing frame. When the Wild West-obsessed circus director fired his Colt revolver, the monkey and Ola scrambled up the frame. Ola won every single time, but won both the audiences and the monkeys heart by sharing half the banana. Time passed, and both Ola and the monkey grew older. When the monkey retired and the circus bought a new monkey that started winning without sharing, Ola quit too.

One hundred years later, Ola was strengthened by all his years in eternity and by the fact that, as a Time-traveller, he could choose which age he wanted to appear in. Thus, it was a twenty-four-year-old Ola who climbed up and swapped the cross for a flaming chalice. Not only was it a chalice, but it appeared to burn thanks to LED lights that Poppe had installed. The battery was guaranteed for 30,000 hours so that the chalice could burn for more than three years. The vicar didnt want to wait for the cup to stop burning on its own. In these times, the Church of Sweden had faced new competitors on the internet: AI-based virtual social workers who told people how good they were, how misunderstood they were, how sorry they felt for them, and everything else people need to hear to cope with a harsh world. The service is free and demands nothing. No church wants rivals of that sort. After four Sundays, the collection was enough to hire a mobile crane that took down the chalice and put back the cross, which Ola had turned into the police lost-and-found department. The police, by the way, managed to find a few short-statured Malmö residents with the wrong colour of both one thing and another.

Nonavi (The Ninth One), the ninth snaps, required a refill of the plate before it was time to move 800 meters to the Disgusting Food Museum on Södra Förstadsgatan. There, Poppe bought the entire stock of super-disgusting dishes and prepared several delicacy plates with samples of: Hákarlfermented shark from Iceland; Casu marzucheese filled with maggots from Sardinia; Cuyroasted guinea pigs from Peru; Stinky tofufoul-smelling tofu from China; Surströmmingfermented fish from Sweden; and finally, sliced durianthe worlds most foul-smelling fruit from Thailand. Durian is probably the closest one can get to the notion of hell and the devils breath. The fruit only exists on Earth because it has long been strictly banned everywhere else in the universe. Even on Uranus, the stinky planet in our solar system, where the atmosphere consists largely of hydrogen sulfide. It is so toxic that a human would die faster than the nerve signals from the nose could arrive and tell the brain how terribly bad it smelled.

Since Time-travellers do not need to breathe Earths oxygen, they dont have to care about air pollution or bad smells. That circumstance was perfect for the next practical joke. This time it was Poppe who would act, both on Earth during the live trial and back on Poppea. As mentioned before, one is forced to use signs to tell the audience in the cosmos that something stinks. A sign reading Smells like Carrion draws violent roars of laughter. Signs like Asshole, on the other hand, are not recommended, but Fart goes down excellently. A sign with the text The Devils Breath caused a storm of laughter that sent solar prominences thousands of kilometres out into space. Poppes dress rehearsal broke all records.

Poppe stood in the middle of Gustav Adolfs Torg during the worst rush-hour traffic and managed to empty the square in less than five minutes. An achievement that got MSBthe Swedish Civil Contingencies Agencyinterested. They had never, during their field trials, managed to empty the same square in under ten minutes. The summoned police couldnt arrest anyone because it was impossible to get into the square.

Among Earthlings, Decimen (The Tenth One) snaps number ten, meaning dead serious. If not earlier, even the most hardened usually say their goodbyes by this point. Naturally not the Time-travellers Poppe and Piraten, who had become quite thirsty during the detailed work with the stench-table at Gustav Adolfs Torg.

Mickey Mouse was the last act in the upcoming performance on Poppea, but when Poppe and his colleagues did the dress rehearsal on Earth, he spontaneously crowned the Malmö day with an act that beat all others. More on that later.

1200 meters from the now deserted square to Pildammsparken, where Poppe was to dump 2.5 kilos of pure powder of the biologically degradable dye uranin, which is enough to colour the main ponds 125 million litres of water green. Poppe sends out his drone, programmed to drop the powder so that the silhouette of Mickey Mouse grows across the water surface and remains for a while, until the colour is dispersed by the small water currents that always exist in water, even on a windless day like this. Naturally, there were people nearby who didnt like miceat least not a seventy-five-meter-tall Mickey. Guess what the mouse-haters did? Yes, they called the police.

The authorities were starting to flag after all of the days call-outs and settled for sending a single car. What did the two newly arrived police officers do? Noted that no bodies were visible. No mob running amok. To be safe, the constables picked up a couple of suspect individuals with the wrong colourwell, you know all about that. Had they not done anything, they probably would have done it fairly soon anyway. The drone flew by itself back to the man who had rented it out. He asked no questions when Poppe paid in advance and proudly shared that he rented out to people from all over the world.

A sprightly lady in her seventies took a beautiful picture with the blushing sky in the east and Mickey Mouse in the foreground and sent it to SVT, which aired it in connection with the evenings local weather as an example of how beautifully a morning sky can reflect in water. It was one of those typically boastful Scanian pictures like: Eat your heart out, you up north with your northern lights!
On Poppea, the act cannot be performed exactly as on Earth, but it is possible to create similar effects and even funnier variations. With the help of a couple of so-called sounding rockets, a few canisters containing barium and lithium are launched into the chromosphere to a height of 400 kilometres. Here the canisters explode and release the metals in gaseous form, creating colourful, glowing clouds that contrast against the faint red colour of hydrogen gas. The contours were unmistakably the same mouse as in Malmö. Reportedly, Mickey Mouse has never been highly rated.

The morning glow had vanished over Pildammarna when Poppe snapped his smartphone shut with a satisfied click. He sat on a green-painted wooden bench by the Margaretapaviljongen and breathed in the scent of damp greenery. On the screen, ATGs digital receipt flashed. It was Saturday, it was just after eleven, and he had just thrown 74,000 kronor into the Swedish betting system.

Even though Time-travellers can easily print their own physical banknotes when push comes to shove, Poppe used something much sleeker for digital transactions. He pulled out his seemingly completely ordinary bank card. It was linked to a secret, bottomless account deep inside the Riksbanks hidden fund for accounting discrepancies. Such mysterious miscalculation funds exist in the central banks of all countries, filled with kronor and ören, euros and cents, pounds and shillings, dollars and cents, or whatever currency the central bank handles, having vanished from the systems over the decades. The Time-travellers frequently used their plastic cards linked to these accounts: an inexhaustible stream of untraceable digital money that never raised any questions. Today it was a Multi-Jackpot on V75 over at Jägersro racetrack, and the seven-correct pool was over 130 million kronor. The Swedish public had locked in the heavy favourites. Poppe, on the other hand, had ticked the boxes for chaos.

He stood up, touched the cold brass tube hidden in his inside pocket, and moved eastward. It was time to transform logic into cosmic magic. He didnt take the bus. Poppe had far too much energy in his body. He took to his heels and jogged at a steady pace through Malmös streets, along Lönngatan, crossed Lantmannagatan, and let his feet drum against the asphalt as the street changed its name to Jägersrovägen. Sweat beaded on his forehead, but it wasnt from exhaustionit was from pure, pulsating anticipation.

When he reached Jägersros stable yard, he slowed his pace and let himself be absorbed by the buzz, the smell of horse sweat, leather, and grilling sausages. It was time to work. Poppe moved like a shadow between the stables and slipped smoothly past the officials. He had already printed a pass card back home on his star with the same printer that fixed all the counterfeit bills. There was no time to lose; the tenth race was not far off. He found Box 14. There he stood, Mr Looser. The horse lived up to his namehis ears drooped, his gaze was dull, and he looked mostly like he wanted to join Ferdinand under his cork tree.

Hang on now, buddy, Poppe whispered telepathically. Time-travellers dont just talk to humans that way; it works perfectly with animals too. Poppe discreetly pulled out his blowpipe, aimed through the bars, and blew out a puff of sparkling, cosmic stjärnstoft (star-dust). The magical dust settled like an invisible film over the horses wither. A second later, Mr Looser fixed his gaze on the wall, snorted so the wood shavings flew, and scraped impatiently with his hoof. Atoms from the edge of the universe had just awakened in his blood.

Poppe slipped along to the next stable to find his second victim, who would run in race eleven: Miss Sucker. A mare in terrible form, a hopeless starting position from gate 12, and a name that made all racing experts laugh. She looked, if possible, even more tired than Mr Looser. Only a complete idiot would bet any money on these two horses. And Poppe, of course. But he had a plan. Poof! Another puff with the blowpipe. Miss Sucker pricked her ears, arched her back, and sounded like a thoroughbred rocket ready for launch. The doping control afterwards? Let them look. There wasnt an instrument in the whole world that could trace the dust of the galaxies.

Poppe made his way up to the grandstand just as the starting car released the field in the tenth race. It turned out to be a shocking display. Mr Looser, starting from an ice-cold back row, shot forward like an arrow. He completely pulverised the opposition and won by 20 meters. The crowd at Jägersro fell silent in collective confusion. No one was jumping or biting their nails because no one had bet on Mr Looser except Poppe, and he was stone cold. Millions of V75 betting slips around the country ended up in the trash bin.

But it was in the eleventh racethe second leg of the Dagens Dubbelthat the real drama would unfold. The start went off, and Miss Sucker was left caught out wide in the third lane, but she trotted on at a murderous pace until she drove past everyone else and landed on the outside of the heavy favourite. She had to trot in the dreaded death seat (the outside track).

Its over! Shes a glue-factory horse; the race is too long; shell never manage to get around on the outside! laughed a chap with a crumpled track program next to Poppe. Poppe just smiled. He was reminded of Romeo Express at Umåker in 1985. Same situation. Same impossible odds. Another Time-traveller was at work then. Miss Sucker had the cosmos in her lungs. The nag in Umåker did too.

On the home straight, the improbable happened. The favourite in the lead began to flag, but Miss Sucker kept chewing away. Despite the lack of interest from the crowd and the heaviest possible position on the outside, the four-legged lady refused to give in. It was pure, raw will mixed with star quality. In a mighty trot, she lowered her head, accelerated as if she had a rocket in her rear, and crossed the finish line with half a horse-length to spareJägersro filled with incredulous silence. Not a single person cheering; the air was just full of sighs and curses.

Poppe pulled the phone out of his pocket. The screen lit up. 7 correct. Sole winner! Since absolutely no one else in all of Sweden had combined these two totally discounted nags, Poppes system was the only one that won. He had vacuumed up ATGs entire gigantic jackpot pool. The balance on the screen ticked up to a staggering 123,525,000 kronor. Poppe withdrew among people ripping up betting slips and throwing programs in anger. Had anyone gotten hold of Miss Sucker, she would surely have become sausage on the spot. Bad losers, Poppe grinned and headed for the exit.

A Time-traveller with access to the Riksbanks deepest vaults has no use for gambling winnings. Poppe opened the donation menu and brought up a digital donation form. His digital assistant gathered all necessary details and account numbers. He only needed to approve, and everything was set. Poppe had already decided on Barnfonden (The Childrens Fund), whose main office was located in Malmö. They are independent, with no links to either political or religious organisations, and work to provide safety for children growing up in areas affected by climate change, war, and disasters. And with a special focus on orphaned children. That was what had clicked.

Poppe pressed Approve. 123 million five hundred twenty-five thousand kronor swished away through cyberspace and landed with Barnfonden. It blipped in the mobile of an astonished aid worker who was on duty. He assumed it was a crude joke or at least an error with the bank. Unfortunately, they had to wait until Monday to clear the matter up. At the same moment, it blipped on his mobile again. It was Barnfondens email account signalling that an email had arrived. In the subject line it stood in capital lettersNOTE! THIS IS NO JOKE. The sender was Fabian Blom. The email briefly described the background to the gift: that the donor himself had been an orphan and adopted. Life had treated him well, and he now wanted to repay it by making life easier for others in the same situation.
Blom specified his conditions: the money must not be touched in its entirety. It was to be locked in a fund where only the annual yield could be used. Every krona of the interest was strictly and eternally earmarked to provide shelter, education, and a secure future for orphaned and abandoned childrenexactly such as he himself once had been when freezing on Malmös streets without knowing if he would survive tomorrow. He also gave an account number at SEB and a code so they could log in and see that it was no trickery. They couldnt access any money, however, until they had met Bloms lawyer and signed an agreement. Everything lay ready, and as soon as the funds management and board had approved the agreement, all was set. Naturally, the on-duty aid worker couldnt help checking the bank account. There stood 123,524,925 kronor. Seventy-five kronor the bank had swiped and called it an account maintenance fee. Mobiles went hot that night.

Poppe hopped on line no. 1 toward the centre. His one-hundred-and-eighteen-year-old orphan childhood soul could sleep well tonight. He stepped off the bus at Regementsgatan and aimed at the iconic blue-tiled skyscraper Kronprinsen rising against the night sky. It was there, high up with a magnificent view over the sound, that his borrowed apartment was located. But before he unlocked the front door, there was something in the air that tickled his mischievous side. He had promised Piraten to test all sorts of pranks that could amuse an audience in farcical forms. Poppe was reminded of a legendary student prank from the 1980s, and suddenly the night felt far too young to go to bed.

On a side street, a police car stood parked. The officers themselves were probably inside a late-night cafe for a well-deserved coffee. The devil got into Poppe. From his backpack, he fished out a small foldable dronea gadget that under normal circumstances would barely have managed to lift a pack of butter. Poppe grinned. He pulled out his brass tube, aimed toward the police car, and blew a generous dose of stjärnstoft (star-dust) over the blue-and-white vehicle. The effect was immediate. The stjärnstoft (star-dust) negated the cars gravity and made it completely weightless; two tons of steel now floated a millimetre above the asphalt, light as a handful of dandelion fluff.

Poppe took out two thin straps that normally would hold for lifting a full ICA grocery bag. He carefully drew them under the police cars chassis and lashed them to the drone with a very special tumble hitch. It was an extraordinarily clever knot, loved by both thieves of former times and Time-travellers. It was constructed to keep an unyielding grip as long as the rope was taut. But the genius lay in its physics: the exact moment the pressure from below eased and the line went slack, the knot lost all its inherent friction and automatically dissolved itself into a completely straight string.

Poppe started the rotors. With a soft hum, the little drone lifted the police car vertically without the slightest effort. It rose silently along Kronprinsens facade, higher and higher, until it hovered just above the flat roof, 82 meters up in the air. Via the drones remote control, Poppe sent a digital signal into the cars computer system. Suddenly the blue lights on the roof turned on, and the sirens started blaring. It wailed and flashed, lighting up one corner of Kronprinsen in neon blue. The drones camera meant Poppe had a full view despite the car being 100 meters away from where he stood. Slowly he lowered the drone until the police cars tyres touched the roof.

The exact moment the cars tyres touched ground, and the carrying straps slackened, his special knot did what it was created for. The knot collapsed by itself. When Poppe then gave the drone full throttle upward, the empty tension straps slipped out of their mountings, and the drone swished elegantly back right down into Poppes waiting handswith the straps neatly hanging and ready for future escapades.

On the street, two police officers came running, each with a coffee mug in hand. They spun around confusedly, looked to the right, looked to the left, before fixing their gaze on where the sirens resounded. High above, their service car stood flashing.

Poppe tucked the folded drone back into his backpack and stepped through the entrance door to Kronprinsen. Now his orphan soul could sleep well tonight. A quote from an interview a very long time ago buzzed in his headComedy is always very funny, but I am actually a serious person. Perhaps it applied then, but not on this day.

For the Curious

Many might wonder what kind of timekeeping applies in eternity, for it can hardly be that one follows Greenwich Mean Time and the Gregorian calendar that governs much of the worlds everyday life. The thing that ensures buses and trains arrive on time, which they still dont always do. Without a shared timekeeping system, the world wouldnt function. So it has been on Earth for as long as we can look back. We have, however, had different calendars. Stone Age people, the Mayans, the Incas, Mesopotamia, Egyptevery culture kept track of time both forward and backwards. For a long time, the Julian calendar prevailed in the part of the world ruled by the Romans. It hung on far into modern history, until it lost so many days that when we finally switched to the Gregorian calendar, eleven days had to be deleted to make the time match.

Now, the thing is that eternity had existed for eternities when the first humans arrived at the stars millions of years ago. They discovered that the way of calculating time they had grown used to on Earth didnt work among the stars, where the sun never rose in the morning and set in the evening but shone just as bright all the time. But there was something else that moved. Out in the gigantic black space, the universes own, eternal clockwork was ticking: the pulsars. These collapsed giant stars rotated in the dark and swept their cosmic beams of light through the galaxy with a precision that made Earths finest Swiss atomic clocks appear like cheap toys.

Some spun hundreds of times a second, but the star-people sought out the older, slow lighthouses. Those that blinked once a second, calmly and methodically. They were clocks that ticked with the same cosmic baseline pace, regardless of whether one was at the outer edge of the Milky Way or deep inside its glowing centre. The only thing that set them apart was the time it took for the flashes of light to travel over the enormous distances. By measuring these light-year pathways, the star-folk created a new, universal calendar. This timekeeping didnt care about rolling bus timetables in Malmö or lost days in Rome, but applied to the entire creation, for all eternity. Since 1950, the year according to Earthly timekeeping, Time-travellers have used PST, Pulsar Standard Time, to synchronise their time.

One of the oldest jobs in eternity was pulse counter. For sure, there are occupations up there, even though no one needs to work for their bread. The pulse counters enjoyed as high a status as the memory keepers, those who kept track of history by carrying it in their heads. By constantly telling the story, it was passed on through oral tradition until humanity learned to write it down. Everything followed the same track in eternity, changing in step with the people who arrived there.

When Nils Poppe and Fritiof Nilsson Piraten arrived in eternity, far into modern times, human pulse counters had long since been unnecessary, just like older men sitting and mumbling history over and over again. There were already atomic clocks making it so that when Poppe and Piraten were to meet, they could determine the time down to fractions of a second. Punctuality is necessary in the cosmos when searching for the right wormhole to move a few light-years to ones neighbour. The visible distance between Poppes Poppea and Piratens star Stella Fabulosa was 4 light-years, but if you took the right wormhole, it was just a fraction and, in Earth time, barely five minutes. But if Piraten blundered and ended up in the wrong wormhole, he could instead land at L'Étoile, which in and of itself was pleasant, for there Auguste Escoffier had his seven-star restaurant with perhaps the universes best wine cellar.