A Habitrail Named Klein

Blake Hodgetts

A Habitrail Named Klein

Music & Lyrics Copyright © by Blake Hodgetts
Lyrics posted by permission of the author

Walter was an ordinary hamster in a cage
He had no lofty aspirations
His days were spent in munching on Purina Hamster Chow
And taking mini-hibernations.
But when his owners started to construct a Habitrail
They never thought this hobby would progress to such a scale

chorus
Oh, Walter, we falter, we fail to express
How sorry we are that we caused such a mess,
We didn't predict and we couldn't foresee
That you'd be the victim of topology

They added lots of tubes and bends and tees to the array
And Walter found the maze compellin'
He'd navigate each circuit in his bland, intrepid way
A little furry, fat Magellan
At length the connectivitiy had nearly grown complete,
The habitrail had formed a twisted hypertoric sheet.

chorus

So Walter sallied forth with no awareness of the fact
That he was crossing holes in subspace
And soon he met himself along the tubeway coming back
This was no ordinary rat-race
A moment later there were three, and then they numbered four
The Walters piled up in the cage and plopped upon the floor

chorus

When Walter's owners came to feed their little furry pal,
They found more than they had expected
For there a writhing mass of Walters wallowed wall-to-wall,
And more were constantly ejected
The mass of plastic pipes that they'd assembled had turned traitor
And become a furry-rodent space-time-warp regurgitator

chorus

They waded through the hamsters as the Walter-level rose
Enduring all the nips and nibbles
See how the squeaking, undulating, plush ameoba grows
Just like a bunker full of tribbles
They tried to disconnect the last addition they had made
But sank beneath the deadly tide of Walters on parade.

chorus

You might suppose the output of this hamster-spewing gun
Would carpet all the world completely
The extra mass might cause the Earth to fall into the sun
Thus wrapping up the story neatly
Instead, the house and soon the habitrail both gave way
Leaving 90 million Walters there, without a place to stay

chorus

The hamster horde dispersed well-nigh as fast as they arose
They hadn't shown up with provisions
They starved and fought and died and they were eaten by the crows
and dogs and cats and owls and pigeons
In fact there was no damage on an ecologic scale
Who knows what would have happened if they hadn't all been male

chorus