The Pass-Through Phenomenon

 

"It was a most bizarre case," I reminded as we entered the lab. "And here we are again. What devilment is afoot this time?"

"Ah yes," Holmes mused. "The Case of the Frozen Monkey; Professor Charmon's experiment in teleportation. He forgot the earth's movement and rotation. Thus, the poor simian found himself briefly in orbit, a most chilling proposition."

Tall stacks of storage batteries lined the passage to the reaction chamber. There, a large white screen dominated a space humming with infernal gadgets--at least in my opinion. The fundamental laws of time and space ought not to be tampered with. 

The professor came out of his office, both hands extended to us. I was obliged a left-handed handshake. "Holmes, Watson--I'm glad you could make it. Once again I seek counsel outside of my immersion in physics. I cannot accept the outcome of my experiment."

Holmes regarded the wild-haired, bespectacled researcher. "I understand it involves a search for alternate dimensions."

"Quite so, and we would expect an infinite variety of worlds. But they're all the same! The law of statistics makes this impossible."

I hovered uncomfortably close to the portal. "Harrumpf! My very hairs are standing on end before this gateway to the river Styx!"

"Hardly  from fear, old boy." Holmes approached. "I daresay it's the electric  potential about the screen, eh Professor?"

"Ey? Oh yes, yes. Now then, are we ready for a quick look 'round?"

"Good heavens, man!" I objected. "After what happened to the monkey?"

Charmon shook his head. "It's quite safe, Doctor. As expected, the site is recognizable by certain landmarks.We'll be right here, only in a different reality. We cannot stay long due to the foul air. I need only select one of my stored settings, though I hardly see the point. There is scant difference in the blighted landscapes."

I could practically hear the gears churning in Holmes' mind.

"Is there a world," Holmes asked, "in which there is some type of mass media?--a newspaper, perhaps."

"I saw something skittering about in world number six. I'll set the dial, and away we go."

The screen didn't change from its bland white. Incredibly, the professor walked right through it. We followed hesitantly. 

The place was indeed bleak. Gloom enshrouded tumbledown structures, as colorless as the wasted grass. A scant breeze did little but stir up noxious fumes. We all took to covering our mouths with a handkerchief.

Holmes held out a hand to collect some floating flotsam. "Ash. Perhaps this world is volcanic, or suffered some man-made calamity." He spotted movement. "There! It appears to be a paper." He rushed up a low hillock before it fluttered out of sight. 

I kept a nervous eye on the glowing gateway behind us, fearful of its collapse ere we escape this charnel house. 

The detective walked down, still reading. "I have news for you, Professor. You have merely traveled to our own future." He leafed through pages. "An asteroid called Apophis struck the planet in the year 2029, laying waste to over a third of it. In spite of this, there's a world war going on. It seems nothing will ever bring us together in common cause." 

Charmon coughed in the bad air. "I knew it would happen. The pass-through phenomenon!" He explained for our benefit. "Alternate realities vibrate at extremely small increments to ours It's easy to pass right through the dimensional potential into time itself." He looked glum. "We've not much of a future, it seems."

"But surely," I pointed out, "there is plenty of time for science to deal with a mere space rock. Think of what we'll accomplish in over a hundred years!"

Holmes let the paper drift away. "You're forgetting the nature of politics, dear boy. Money is better spent getting re-elected, and buying favors from the arms conglomerate. The wonder of it is that we make it that far."

After a bout of gloomy reflection, we went back into the gateway. I looked back one last time. A pair of noisy flying machines screamed by overhead, powered by some means I could not fathom." Humpf! You've got the money for those at any rate." Distant explosions prompted me to hastily depart. 

Easter Eggs Then and Now

 

The upper right is how most remember the old days of egg dyeing: the smell of vinegar, the wire egg holders, dipping them according to how dark the desired color was. Don't forget the wax pencils for areas that didn't absorb the color. You could also make two-tone eggs, half and half. Then there were the baskets. Most had shredded plastic 'hay' of green or yellow. Jelly beans, chocolate bunnies and yellow marshmallow chicks rounded out the recipe of this appetite wrecker (forget lunch). 

Hiding and hunting for them was also an adventure, but watch out for squirrels--one was seen gnawing on a plastic egg to get at the candy inside. Lastly, there were the prized ones to be saved. Decades later, you could take this one out and gently shake its feathery weight, but no sound emerged from the bit of dust inside. 

Small Accent Picture

 

The image area of this 6x9 would normally be cropped, but by including the mat, one gets a better impression of how it looks when displayed. The frame is slightly darker; too dark would make this idyll scene look imprisoned. From a photo of my aunt's property in the Carolinas. A huge amount of liberties was taken with the subject, but that's half the fun. 

Lemmings

 

Tonight we visit a world fast becoming a suicide cult. Fact has given way to feeling; reason has fallen to hysterical parroting of the party line. Apathy is no longer an option, because they're coming to your town, your street, your house. Conformity is the rule in a society where the individual is a rebel who must not be tolerated. Future archaeologists will scratch their heads while sifting through the rubble, grateful they missed that hard left turn into The Twilight Zone.

Chester relaxed on his mist-shrouded back porch, his haven since retiring from farm work. Not that he'd had a choice--some trillionaire had bought all the farm land. His new hobby, writing stories, required more work than he'd bargained for. Currently it meant stepping back to practice creating a mood. He eased back and forth on the sofa slide, listening to sounds outside the protective screens. Damned mutant mosquitoes. 

The screen door creaked open, then slammed shut as Earl came out. He operated a small heating oil business being squeezed to death by reams of new regulations. Plopping onto the sofa, he almost caused Chester's coffee to spill. 

"What's shakin'?" Earl glanced at the notebook. "Still writin' fairy tales?"

Chester set his cup aside. "I'm working on mood right now. Hear that bird?" A lonely two-note call echoed, a defiant declaration of life. "Here's my take on it." 

Earl read the passage. "Beyond the haven came the chickadee's TSVEET tsveet call." He handed the notes back. "Yep. That's a chickadee all right." Next he presented his own handwritten flyer. "I thought you could look this over, Mr English Major."

"Let's take a look here. . . .'Thirty dollar special. We'll spray a thin coat of oil on your lawn to destroy over-wintering insects'." Chester shook his head. "Who are you fooling? This is a way to dispose of used oil without paying a recycling fee--and making money to boot! City hall will shut this down quick."

"Well, shyte it all." Earl squinted at a humanoid shape loping past the tractor shed. "You heard anything on the news about weird stuff goin' on?"

"Not a thing. Not the earthquakes, the high altitude spraying to block the sun, nothing. But word is getting out from people leaving the big cities. It's a war zone. I'm starting to understand why Homeland Security bought a billion rounds of nine millimeter some years ago."

Earl made a tongue razzy. "Conspiracy nuts. Hey, you watchin' the game tonight?"

"Bread and circuses," Chester said. Earl didn't get it. Just then, four members of the friendly local national guard came out, masked to the gills and in full camo. What little flesh that was visible was covered with sores. 

The leader consulted his pad, stared at Chester. "Your health passport has not yet been activated."

Chester shrugged. "I decline to follow the masses over a cliff, that's all. I can still buy food on the web, buy gas at the pump, and see internet doctors."

"Not anymore. Your assets are frozen until you comply."

Gunfire sounded along the north ridge.

"Maybe I better go," Earl said, obliged to squeeze around the unyielding soldiers. "Got a wife to protect somehow. Guess I'll throw rocks at anything that breaks in. Got no guns, honest."

Chester grinned. "Think about all the movies where aliens attack. Actually, all they'd have to do is wait for us to do it ourselves, then move right on in." He sniffed  moist decay on the breeze. "Is this fog ever gonna lift? It's been three days."

The leader ignored it. "Your appointment is in three days. Don't miss it. And be careful what you write about--you could be classified as a domestic terrorist."

"Says you," Chester muttered when they'd gone. They didn't know about his food and weapons stockpile. He cautiously opened the screen door on his end and whistled. A misshapen monstrosity appeared out of the gloom, greedily snatched at the offered sausage biscuit. It seemed to have a distant memory of the rifle. 

"Tell all your fellow passport holders," Chester said. "We've got work to do." 

Friday Night Creative Way

Happy Friday!  Creativity lately has hit a snag with a cold.  They really put a chisel in the creativity with productivity in a way that leaves a creatively inclined person lack trust with themselves to make a logical decision on story writing.  It is what it is.   What project are you working on? Is it art? Is it writing?  Let us know!  Sit down with a desert with a coffee or tea and let's talk on creativity.  When age did it all start for you?  Got some stories to tell?  Maybe now is the time.  Start a journal.  I have a system. In the morning I write three pages of nonsense literally.  It clears the static and puts the mind in gear. Drop on by and let's talk about the creativity process.  Stuck on an assignment or have questions in the field of writing or art? We're here to inspire to help with your aspirations. Thank you for stopping by.

Good luck on your project!

 

What Happened To The Magic?

 

Giant drapes walled off the central mermaid bay at Five Forks Emporium. Shoppers at the sports complex weren't supposed to see rehearsals for tonight's extravaganza. Starting at eight, the mermaid trio would thrill the crowd with eye-popping stunts. Demanding the most attention, the Slide Hoop loomed large and forbidding, but someone had to calibrate it. Sirtis, the dark haired blue marmaid, volunteered.

Blonde Binia, having white and purple flukes, floated lazily next to red haired Ellie in green. They made sure to stay clear of the splash zone.

"Got reservations?" Ellie asked, hands linked behind her head. 

"Hm? Oh, not about the stunt--just the necessity for them. The act is going Hollywood these days. What happened to the magic?"

"I know what you mean." Ellie went vertical, floating neck deep, watching Sirtis pull herself up the ladder. "It's more fun when the schools are here. The kids think we're the real thing."

Sirtis ventured forth, beginning a steep belly slide. Ideally, she'd sail through a large hoop--fire having been firmly declined--to dive into the lagoon. Though carefully calculated, her trajectory came up short.

"Waaaaa!" Sirtis caught the hoop low, swinging back and forth, tail and arms dangling. 

Ellie laughed. "Now that's a weird catch. What the heck is it? The fishermen should throw it back."

"Ha, ha." Sirtis hung by her hands, did a flip to splash down head first. She popped up close by. "So the hoop needs to be lowered. Who's next?"

"You're doing fine," Binia insisted. "We'll be a lot more confident when you fly through in one piece."

"This bites," Sirtis groused. "Are we a circus now?"

Actually, part of the presentation was just that, adapted by a producer for a popular TV stunt show.

The suit watched from the center island. "We're on a schedule, ladies. You want to pass the audition, don't you?"

The trio eyed each other. "Audition?" they said in unison.

Some of the emporium brass loitered at the glass barrier on the service end, no doubt dreaming of TV fame and getting the complex on the map. 

Sirtis swam over to the slide and hauled herself out of the water. "Mr Jeffers," she said to the producer. "There's a rough spot on the top platform. I almost lost a few scales."

Jeffers hurried up the ladder. "How can that be? It's polished aluminum."

Binia had a pained look. "She wouldn't." 

"I think she would," Ellie affirmed.

Just as Jeffers crouched at the top, Sirtis' blue tail lashed out to propel him on his way.

"Woahhhhhh!" Jeffers raced down the slide, arms flailing, and sailed neatly through the hoop. He made a mighty splash, foundering like the Titanic.

Binia and Ellie got to him before he drowned. 

"What the hell?" he spluttered, his mood not helped by chuckles from the service end.

"You should be honored," Binia said. "The Sirits Slap is the highlight of the show when she uses it."

The pair helped a sodden producer perch on the island edge, legs still in the water. He coughed and wiped water from his eyes. 

"You can't be serious. I'm supposed to do that for the audience?" He turned to the brass in appeal.

The company president made a smiling thumbs up.

The Admirers

 

This is a 10x10 sequence created as a 'drop in' segment for a comic. Hasn't been used yet, but it features the sorceress Valkris on a ship with Ed and Pete of Team Dan. Their stealth admiration for her has gotten them in numerous comic scrapes. Other uses for such panels are 'retreads' of pages you decide aren't going anywhere, but some of the art is reusable.