Chapter 433

A tourist in Vienna is going through a graveyard and all of a sudden he hears music. No one is around, so he starts searching for the source.

He finally locates the origin and finds it is coming from a grave with a headstone that reads: "Ludwig van Beethoven, 1770- 1827". Then he realizes that the music is Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and it is being played backward!

Puzzled, he leaves the graveyard and persuades a friend to return with him. By the time they arrive back at the grave, the music has changed. This time it is the Seventh Symphony, but like the previous piece, it is being played backwards. Curious, the men agree to consult a music scholar.

When they return with the expert, the Fifth Symphony is playing, again backwards.

The expert notices that the symphonies are being played in the reverse order in which they were composed, the 9th, then the 7th, then the 5th.

By the next day the word has spread, and a crowd has gathered around the grave. They are all listening to the Second Symphony being played backward. Just then the graveyard's caretaker ambles up to the group. Someone in the group asks him if he has an explanation for the music.

"I would have thought it was obvious," the caretaker says.

"He's decomposing."

It's hell to get old...

A seventy eight-year-old man is sitting on a park bench, sobbing, when a young man walks by and asks him what's wrong.

Through his tears the old man answers, "I'm in love with a twenty-five-year-old woman."

"What's wrong with that?" asks the young man.

Between the sobs and sniffles, he answers, "You can't understand. Every morning before she goes to work, we make love...

At lunchtime she comes home and we make love again, and then she makes my favorite meal. In the afternoon when she gets a break, she rushes home and we make more love, the best an old man could want.

And then at suppertime, and all night long, we make love." He breaks down, no longer able to speak.

The young man puts his arm around him. "I don't understand. It sounds like you have a perfect relationship. Why are you crying?"

The old man answers, again through his tears, "I forgot where I live."