The Old Blog in the Desert

Call me Samuel Clemens, though the world mostly knows me as Mark Twain. I’m a man fond of stories, mischief, and finding myself in ridiculous situations, and New York City in the 1890s offered more than its fair share.

One of the most memorable of these was my friendship with Nikola Tesla, the man of coils, currents, and ideas that could make your hair stand on end. “Mr. Twain,” Tesla said the first time I visited his laboratory, “you are the reason I am alive today.”

I nearly dropped my hat. “Alive? Nikola, I only ever meant to amuse folks. You don’t mean my books cured you?”

“Indeed,” he replied. “I was gravely ill. Your writings distracted me from despair, and I recovered. Miraculously.”

I won’t lie; my chest swelled a little. “Well now,” I said, “I always fancied myself a doctor of sorts, but usually of the mind, not the body.”

Tesla’s laboratory was a wonderland of alternating currents humming, coils shooting sparks, machines whistling, buzzing, and performing tricks I could scarcely explain without sounding half-mad.

One day, he insisted I try his latest invention—a high-frequency oscillating platform. “Step here, Mr. Twain,” he said. “It will relieve your… discomfort.”

I eyed the contraption suspiciously. “Discomfort?” I said, and lowered myself onto it. “You mean my chronic constipation?”

“Yes, precisely. You’ll feel better.”

Now, I must confess, I was too busy marveling at the vibrations under my feet, the strange tingling up my legs, and the sheer wonder of it all. I wasn’t listening very well.

“Ninety seconds,” Tesla warned. “Then you…”

Before he could finish, I felt a most alarming and unexpected effect. The vibrations, combined with my ignorance of proper caution, accomplished their task with remarkable speed, and I, Mark Twain, dashed from that platform, hollering like a startled turkey, having, well, thoroughly emptied myself.

“Good heavens!” I cried, slapping at my coat, “that is the quickest relief a man ever knew! And the most undignified!”

Ever composed, Tesla nodded. “It works, does it not?”

“It works,” I admitted, though I might have been blushing if a man of my years could still blush. “Too well, Nikola! Too well by half!”

Despite this mortifying adventure, our friendship endured. We dined at the Players Club, exchanged letters, including one inviting him to my daughter’s wedding in 1909, and talked endlessly about books, machines, and the strange little ways the world can surprise a man.

“You are a man of wires and lightning, Nikola,” I said one evening over whiskey.

“And you, a man of words and mischief,” he replied, raising that peculiar, knowing brow of his.

Between Tesla’s coils and my pen, we discovered a spark that neither could have conjured alone, and I, Mark Twain, can honestly say, would not have traded it for anything in the world. Though I’ll add, if ever you find yourself on one of his platforms, mind where your attention wanders, or you may find yourself in a situation far more immediate than you ever intended.