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Some readers may recall sick Beth mentioned a couple times in "A Bikini Beach Summer". Unfortunately, Grandmother's solution to everything wiped out Ruth's attempt to get information about Beth's sickness to her parents. This is a side-story to the sequel, which is still being written. It occurs a few weeks later, and Beth's condition has consequently worsened.
As usual, thoughts and statements about Bikini Beach are potentially wrong, being made by persons with imperfect knowledge. Bikini Beach and its primary characters are copyright 1998 by Elrod W.
By Daphne Xu
Sunday, August 17
Grandpa Rochester watched as Mrs. Cuttington took her daughter Ruth by the shoulder, and led her away to her car. Ruth had challenged him about Beth's disease, and practically ordered him to restore the medicine, and even take her to a hospital! He felt a bit guilty about accusing nine-year-old Ruth, a girl Beth's age, of mental malpractice in mentally holding back Beth's healing. Nevertheless, Truth had to firmly counter evil and animal magnetism.
He continued on into the Sunday School, where Beth still sat.
"Grandpa," said Beth weakly.
He looked down at her, full of love for his grand-daughter, seeing God's Perfect Child sitting where material sense showed a weak and pale little girl.
He lifted her up, she put her arms around his neck, and he carried her to the Church. He sat her down on the bench and sat down next to her. Beth was always so nice and quiet, a joy to be around.
He closed his eyes, and knew the Truth about Beth as the perfect child of God, coming alert again as the First Reader opened the service with the hymn. He noticed out of the corner of his eye the older sister of that girl Ruth. Lucy had stood silently as Ruth had challenged him. Now, she was sitting next to her father. Her mother had apparently elected to stay home with Ruth.
Once church was over, Grandpa carried Beth out to the car, and buckled her into the back seat. He got into the driver's seat and buckled himself in. He opposed seat belts on Principle, as using them normally meant admitting the possibility of accidents. But the law required seat belt usage, and Christian Science required following the law. This had the logical consequence of no longer actually admitting the possibility of accidents.
They arrived home safely, thereby proving that accidents were unknown in Science.
TUESDAY morning, a FedEx envelope arrived. Grandpa opened it and found a letter and a brochure from Bikini Beach.
Dear Mr. Rochester
As part of a promotion for Bikini Beach, we are proud
to announce a free Grandparent-Granddaughter day
at Bikini Beach. This offer is good this summer through
Saturday, August 23. To accept this offer, simply bring
your granddaughter and, if desired, friends of your
granddaughter, up to a maximum of six persons total,
to one of the booths at Bikini Beach. Present this letter
and receive your day passes.
The letter had other information. Despite the name, Bikini Beach, the brochure showed girls approximately Beth's age in one-piece swimsuits swimming, going down slides, and doing other fun activities. Girls and women in the blurry distance were in bikinis, but the focus girls were all in one-piece swimsuits.
Grandpa had heard of Bikini Beach, and had heard all sorts of bizarre rumors about Bikini Beach. They promoted immodesty in girls. They changed people to animals and reptiles; they changed boys to girls; they made boys disappear into oblivion. They even altered reality so that what happened never happened and what never happened happened.
Grandpa knew that such things were impossible in Science. Nevertheless, he was skeptical of "free" offers and all forms of advertising. He was leaning toward discarding the invitation, when Beth saw the brochure.
"That looks so fun," whispered Beth. "Please, Grandpa? Can't we go?"
"I can't promise yet, but we might go tomorrow." Grandpa knew he should firmly say no, but he hadn't the strength. They couldn't go Thursday, because Beth would be flying home then.
"Oh, goody!" said Beth.
Grandpa spent the rest of the day reading from Science and Health, as well as the Bible and Prose Works. He saw nothing warning him against Bikini Beach, although there were repeated warnings to deny all claims of evil or error. One was admonished to make it one's law that mental malpractice and animal magnetism would not affect or influence oneself.
WEDNESDAY morning, he had decided. He would take Beth to Bikini Beach for the day. He helped to dress Beth in a sky-blue one-piece swimsuit, and, making sure he had the letter with him, carried her out to the car.
He drove to Bikini Beach, and, carrying Beth, got into line for one of the booths. It wasn't long before a staff member of Bikini Beach approached him. "Sir, if you follow me, we'll have you and your granddaughter processed promptly. You need not wait in line."
"Thank you, miss," said Grandpa, as he followed the young woman to one of the booths. He handed the elderly lady manning the booth the letter.
"Greetings, Mr. Rochester, and thank you for participating in our promotion." She handed him two day-pass cards. "You are welcome to bring your granddaughter into the men's changing room with you -- and remember to shower, it's a Bikini Beach requirement."
"Thank you, ma'am," said Grandpa. He found the men's changing room in no time, and sat Beth down while he changed into his swimming trunks. He took Beth to one of the showers, one with stainless-steel bars to hold onto. He set Beth down, standing holding one of the bars, while he turned on the shower.
He noticed a pink tint to the mist in the shower, and felt himself changing shape and shrinking. `Everything works for the good of those who love God, and mental malpractice cannot, in Science, harm one.' He kept focus on those thoughts, even as he reached Beth's size, and even as he and Beth both shrunk further.
"Are we ready, girls?" asked Grandma from behind them, in her own skirted one-piece swimsuit.
"Yes, Grandma," answered seven-year-old Bambi, as she followed her identical twin sister Beth, dressed in an identical sky-blue one-piece swimsuit, out of the shower.
Grandma led them to the exit, and opened the door, giving the three of them their first view ever of Bikini Beach. Grandma extended the index finger of each hand, and Beth and Bambi each took hold of one finger. Grandma led them out into the water park.
"WHAT WE JUST DID seems almost slimy," said Anya, as she watched the trio from a distance and Grandmother returned from dealing with them. "Not even giving Mr. Rochester a sporting chance while changing him and completely rewriting his mind and reality -- not even letting him know. Maybe you could have changed him and Beth for the day, and given him the ultimatum: get Beth the appropriate medical care, or else."
Grandmother replied, "Beth *hated* the necessary daily injections. They hurt the little child, much more than they would have hurt either of us. Her schoolmates tormented her for them, and she was hammered academically because of that. She had to repeat first grade, and was going to repeat second grade. She was *happy* when her grandfather told her she didn't need the injections, that her life didn't depend on them, and that God would take care of her. Anya, what does your Sight tell you would have happened had we not done this?"
"I could tell immediately without the Sight how weak she was, almost faint even." Anya closed her eyes and concentrated for a moment. "Today, Beth's parents arrive home from their tour. They hear from Grandpa that he and Beth had a wonderful summer together, although she was experiencing a claim of weakness -- a horrible euphemism that Grandpa actually believes. You're right; an ultimatum wouldn't have worked. Beth's Grandpa is stuck in a belief system that can't be refuted. Tomorrow, Beth is barred from her flight home because of her sickness. The airline informs her parents that Beth wasn't allowed to board, about the same time that Ruth's letter reaches them, telling them that Grandpa has taken her off the injections.
"Beth's parents promptly fly out here, only to discover Beth in a coma. They call 911, and learn that Grandpa has disposed of the medicine and the syringes. The ambulance takes Beth and the parents to the emergency room, where Beth gets an immediate injection. It's too close to call; the possibilities branch here:
"Beth dies. The injection is too late.
"Beth lives, and recovers in a few weeks with some permanent damage. In the long run, her body requires ever-increasing doses of medicine, as she grows and as her body adjusts to the medicine. She also develops some damage to her eyes and toes, probably because the dosage isn't increased fast enough. She eventually recovers academically, with home-schooling.
"In both cases, Beth's family and Grandpa are permanently estranged."
Grandmother said, "And now, instead, we have two healthy seven-year-old twins, at their academic level. Their loving Grandma is now alive and well, and while Grandpa apparently died in the incident that formerly took his wife, he is now Bambi, one of the twins. Beth's parents are now still friendly with Grandma."
Anya shook her head sadly. "It still feels like we're playing God, deciding the fates of people without asking them -- without the all-knowingness and infinite wisdom associated with God. Recall that when we transformed Tracy to undo Jill Denison's murder and restore Peter, we inadvertently undid Ruth's messages to Beth's parents three weeks earlier. There always seems to be side effects and unforeseen consequences to global reality-shifts. I wonder what may happen here. I agree that we had to do it, but still..."
"When the fates are horrible, we sometimes just have to do something -- especially if we contributed to the problem," said Grandmother. She smiled at Anya. "Now let's take a breather and go for ice cream."
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Comments
i think
I think there are times when fate needs to be adjusted to a better conclusion. this story illustrates the fact of that. keep up the good work.
robert
O_O
Oh wow! At least they saved Beth in time! I wonder does Grandpa still know what's going on or did he move on to the next life or something? Either way YAY STORY BY YOU! SO HAPPY :D
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
Grandpa is now Beth's twin, Bambi
BUT he, now she gets an entire new life which he did not deserve. At least if the awful outcomes predicted had occurred.
To put YOUR world view, your religion ahead of others's and their well being is plain out wrong.
And now the late grandmother is alive?
Oh what a web these global magic makeovers weave.
At least the park magic has cured Beth of her nasty type one diabetes.
But I still think Grandpa got a do over, a new chance at life he did not deserve.
I suppose it was the best way Anna and her Grandmother had to save Beth.
Maybe she, formerly Beth's grandpa will turn out better this time around.
Sad -- but it has happened in the real world -- of well meaning people doing great harm in the name of faith or some strong held belief.
A classic logical error. If the evidence appears to contradict your theory, then the evidence must be wrong be heresy, be mental malpractice as your theory is right.
Whereas if you REALLY want to get towards the truth, if evidence contradicts your theory then maybe your theory needs to be changed to fit the evidence.
A short but thought provoking story here.
Nice.
John in Wauwatosa
P.S. What if any unexpected repercussions will this reworking of realty cause? Will our hero and heroine of A Bikini Beach Summer notice the reality shift?
John in Wauwatosa
Good Issues
> At least the park magic has cured Beth of her nasty type one diabetes.
A number of readers have identified Beth's disease as diabetes. I have avoided specifying it, although they're all correct, it's based on type-1 diabetes. My reason is that I didn't know enough about type-1 diabetes to commit myself to that disease. The in-universe reason is that the protagonists Luke/Lucy and Grandpa Rochester don't know the term and are sufficiently ignorant not to be able to pick it up when it's mentioned. As for Anya and Grandmother in that last section -- I had no good reason in-universe to avoid identifying the disease, but I did anyway.
> Will our hero and heroine of A Bikini Beach Summer notice the reality shift?
I have part of the Wednesday Evening Meeting written, where Lucy recognizes the twins and Mrs. Rochester, and Ruth goes over and talks with them. Lucy now has completely forgotten sick Beth and Mr. Rochester. Ruth (because of the nature of Peter's change to her) remembers sick Beth from Before, but remembers the healthy twins from After. (I'll leave it to you to figure out what Before and After refer to). If the twins excitedly describe their day at Bikini Beach to Ruth, Ruth just might figure out that something happened today to change sick Beth to healthy Beth.
> What if any unexpected repercussions will this reworking of realty cause?
Ruth reverts to Peter about three weeks later. I'm going to assume, until Elrod tells me otherwise, that Bikini Beach knows how to deal with interwoven reality-shifts, so that Grandpa Rochester's change to Bambi sticks even though Ruth's actions motivating the Bikini Beach change get wiped out with Peter's restoration. Other repercussions? Who knows. I might think of something while writing the sequel.
> And now the late grandmother is alive?
Not an unexpected repercussion. Grandpa Rochester had to die, as opposed to never having existed in the first place. In the latter case, Beth never gets born. Or perhaps (according to Glenn Matsumoto in "A Bikini Beach Summer" Part 15) Beth gets killed in the reality-shift. Age considerations leads one to realize that Grandma and Grandpa Rochester are in their late fifties or possibly early sixties. So Grandma died through perhaps an accident. It was decided that Grandpa died then instead.
> Oh what a web these global magic makeovers weave.
It really gets mind-melting when one considers that the earth is just one small planet orbiting a middle main-sequence star, one of millions (billions?) in the Milky Way -- one of hundreds of thousands? Millions? of galaxies in the visible universe.
> But I still think Grandpa got a do over, a new chance at life he did not deserve.
> Maybe she, formerly Beth's grandpa will turn out better this time around.
Maybe she'll do the world a bit of good, to pay for the new chance at life. We can only hope.
> A short but thought provoking story here.
Thanks! :-)
-- Daphne Xu
a do over?
Grampa did *not* get a do over... they erased him... for all practical purposes he's dead.
Memory erasure
Any kind of a memory erasure is a kind of identity death. It's a concept that you see a lot in literature that involves transformations and reality shifts.
Not Grandma
Not grandma playing GOD but the Grandpa messing with the parents wishes , Beth gets a healthy life and well Grandpa just got lucky
Grandpas takes Beth to bikini beach
If Grandpas essence is what's important than he got a do over with a new life, if memories are all then he's dead but mourned by his family instead of being estranged and guilty of killing his granddaughter. Considering he acted out of "good intentions" and a heartfelt religious belief without much basis in the real world he came out ahead of the deal.
Time is the longest distance to your destination.
Grandps's second chance
Did Grandpa not deserve a second chance?
Who knows what malevolent characters in Grandpa's youth, contributed to his ignorance? Maybe Grandpa was a victim too. Perhaps in giving him a second chance, Grandmother righted a wrong from long ago.
Before I decide, I like to look at another other side of the coin.
I Dunno
I assume that Grandpa got an ordinary Christian Science upbringing, perhaps in a family who took Christian Science more seriously than most. He didn't encounter enough to lead him to question sufficiently the doctrine. In "A Bikini Beach Summer" he gave a Wednesday Evening comment about Mrs. Eddy's demand for "radical reliance" as opposed to "timid conservatism".
It might be called "innocent malevolence" or "unwitting malevolence" on his parents' and on the part of Christian Scientists in general.
But I don't think I need to make any of this canon.
-- Daphne Xu
Vigilantism
This is as good a place as any to comment about what is, in this story, a major theme.
I will start by admitting that I see this from the viewpoint of a neutral good person.
Someone who is on the lawful end of the spectrum is going to have a problem with vigilantes just as a matter of course. That doesn't mean that there aren't real, pragmatic problems.
The most common argument is that vigilantes are very often wrong, and commonly harm the innocent. You see this in real life, and also in a lot of fiction. You have various hate groups like the KKK and the various 'Humanity First' types of fictional organizations giving vigilantes a bad name -- as if they hadn't earned it all by themselves in many cases.
And then, there are the 'Buford T Pusser' types (Walking Tall) who clean up messes where the system won't.
Also, vigilantes are definitely needed when the system itself is corrupt -- like those cops who forced a confession from an innocent person.
In the case of the Bikini Beach franchise, we have a Spider Man situation -- if you have great power, you have great responsibility, or something like that.
And Grandma and Anya are placed in a position where they do have power and responsibility. They mess up sometimes. Do they make more errors than the system? That is definitely debatable. But they definitely do their level best to make things come out in the best possible way. I'll take honest errors over corruption any day -- especially when those who made the errors try their best to fix them.
Vigilantism
Yes, pretty much everything is correct here. In the first book, I had Glenn Matsumoto (the lawyer) angry about vigilantism but also considering that vigilantism might be necessary when the law is powerless or corrupt.
Changing everyone's memories and identity death were major motivations for the first book, and also what lead the religious part grow like a plot tumor.
-- Daphne Xu
Love the faulty logic
Grandpa is another who blindly believes what he's told without question. He never 'thinks' about what he believes, just accepts it as true.
When he thought about putting on a seat belt only because it was the law, he dismissed the possibility of there being such things as accidents.
And when they arrived home from church, he logically believed because no accident occurred, that accidents never happened. That there was no basis for them in Science.
Talk about a load of hogwash. Accidents happen every day, and are very real to those who've been in the accident. And wearing a seat belt has nothing to do with admitting or denying accidents occur. Just as arriving safely home doesn't mean accidents don't happen. It just means they arrived home safely.
How dare another family member take it upon themselves to stop a person's medication just because they believed it wrong. Beth may not have liked the daily shots, but they kept her alive.
Being changed to Bambi took away grandpa's ability to affect Beth's health as he'd previously done. Curing Beth kept her from needing daily shots. This is a win win situation for Beth.
Grandpa, on the other hand, likely can't remember ever being his former self, so has no memory of almost killing his granddaughter because of his beliefs. People like grandpa are a real danger because they accept without thinking or questioning what they believe. And reject anything that doesn't fit their beliefs even when the truth of that thing stares them in the eyes.
Others have feelings too.
Grandpa
Yes, Grandpa was one of those who one couldn't get through to, caught up as he was in his CS beliefs. As is Ma. There's hope for Pa.
Actually, there is a real-world situation, in that the older one is, the hard it is to correct one. I think it's something physical in the mind. But sometimes, people do change even when old.
-- Daphne Xu