[ WP ] After inventing and successfully testing a method of teleportation , the inventor develops a phobia of seeing or feeling straight edges and sharp angles . You 're a reporter interviewing the inventor in her specially outfitted room at a private psychiatric facility . You discover she 's not crazy .

`` So the thing about teleportation,'' began Dr Clerkwell after a long pause in the conversation. 
 
 I had the tape machine in my hand, but did n't switch it on. For five hours I'd been chatting with the good doctor, carefully avoiding any mention of lines or angles or planes. In fact just avoiding anything to do with geometry. And for five hours the good doctor had talked amiably enough, but after every long pause he would start the conversation with those same five words before drifting off into ga-ga land. 
 
 `` So the thing about teleportation is that it only works under a full moon.'' 
 
 `` So the thing about teleportation is that the elderly will have to be sent upside-down.'' 
 
 `` So the thing about teleportation is that rabbits get turned into mice.'' 
 
 `` So the thing about teleportation is that viruses grow ten times their size.'' 
 
 `` So the thing about teleportation is that everyone will need to wear a captain's hat.'' 
 
 `` So the thing about teleportation is that it turns people inside out.'' 
 
 The good doctor was certifiable, that much I knew. But somehow I could n't leave without getting anything. I was n't the first reporter, but I needed to come away with something more than just `` Clerkwell still insane''. 
 
 `` So the thing about teleportation is that its circular,'' the doctor started, his eyes fixed on me. 
 There was a long pause as neither I nor he moved. 
 
 When he'd mouthed circular I'd immediately wanted to press the Record button, finally something that might relate to the weirdo nonsense about lines and angles. But something told me it would be a mistake and that the doctor was waiting to see how I'd react. The doctor has calculated this move, waiting until I was bored and ready to go before seeing if I would salivate like a Pavlovian dog when the correct word finally appeared. 
 
 `` Circular,'' the doctor repeated, still waiting for me to respond. 
 
 `` Is it?'' I answered as nonchalantly as I could, beads of perspiration slowly forming under my arms. This could be it, I thought. Finally a break - an answer to one of the many questions that kept swirling through the public - why did Clerkwell go insane? Why did destroy everything after having proved it worked? Why had his assistant joined a monastery and taken a vow of silence? And did any of this have to do with the suddenly warm weather we were all experiencing? 
 
 `` If you try and send something from one point to another, along the shortest route...'' 
 
 He closed his eyes and I took a big gamble `` Along a straight line...?'' 
 
 `` We're moving you know'' 
 
 I looked around the room, and then at his seat and mine. We were perfectly still. 
 
 `` The whole planet I mean'' 
 
 `` Oh'' I replied and I began to regret fixing the draw so that I got this interview and not the paper's science reporter. 
 
 `` Very fast. If I tried to pick a co-ordinate in reference to where I am now and send something to it, in the blink of an eye it would be hundreds of miles away in deep space.'' 
 
 `` I see,'' I said even though I did n't. But the earth moved around the sun, I knew that much. So I guess it made sense that... oh, that we'd need to take that into account when teleporting things. Had the doctor been accidentally launching things into the earth's wake? Into deep space? 
 
 The doctor read my face, `` I think you're beginning to see.'' 
 
 `` But, that does n't...'' I was going to ask about the straight lines 
 
 `` Its all circular motion.'' 
 
 `` Right,'' I was so close to something now. 
 
 `` And if you do it wrong, well, the device is shifting atoms around using very fundamental forces.'' 
 
 This was it, I was finally going to have a story. 
 
 `` Very powerful forces.'' 
 Yes, keep going. 
 `` And I was manipulating them without understanding how much they might move.'' 
 
 I was holding my breath but did n't want to start again in case it interupted his flow. 
 
 `` So I may have accidentally...'' 
 
 But he did n't finish. He sat, staring, as I quietly willed the words to come out of his mouth. Eventually I gulped in some air. But he never said another word. 
 
 Nothing more. And I had been so very close. 
 
 
 Two weeks later researchers at Mt Palos realised that the earth's orbit had somehow shifted into a slow spiraling descent toward the sun.
