December 13, 2013:
Four Imaginary Solutions to Zeno's Paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise.
One.
Achilles, reeling with survivor's guilt after Troy, bitterly chooses to kill the tortoise since, after all, why should it live if Troilus doesn't? Being unable by definition to catch the tortoise on foot, Achilles fires an arrow from his great war-bow. However the arrow, again by definition, being equally unable to reach the tortoise, simply stops in mid-air, to Achilles' massive and middleschoolish frustration, leading to the following dialog between them:
Achilles: What the fuck?
Arrow: Kiss my ass.
Etc. etc.
Two.
Achilles, masking his habitual pouty face, charms the tortoise into returning.
"Tortoise," he coos seductively. "I've got some yummy lettuce for you tortoise."
The tortoise, peckish after his long labor of travel, is grateful for the invitation. Doubling back, he's by definition unable to close the distance; thus the two stare at each other across a wide gulf, until they each finally starve to death at roughly the same moment, which just goes to show.
Three.
Achilles, seeing his friend King Sisyphus in the distance, calls to him for help. Sisyphus, shrewdly sizing up the circumstance, places a heavy round boulder squarely across the path the tortoise must take to climb a hill. The tortoise, unable to budge the boulder without it rolling back and crushing him, halts its foreword movement. Achilles, gratified, sits down to play pinochle with Sisyphus; none of the three go anywhere.
Four.
Hercules turns up, Achilles asks for help, Hercules jumps into the air and lands with a mighty crash, so powerful its shockwave hurls the tortoise into the air and backward toward the two warriors. Rinse and repeat. The tortoise eventually lands plop in the two warriors' soup kettle, just as the water boils. Achilles and Hercules discuss the concepts of force, gravity, angular momentum, and vegetarianism while sipping turtle soup.