Archive for October, 2009

Street legal … but for how long?

Overall, I’ve had very few complaints about my little pick-up.

Oh, I would have preferred that the transmission would have been made of sterner stuff and that the a/c less of a tinker toy affair, that the spare tire that came with her was an actual tire and not a overgrown solid riding mower tire, and that her engine could be worked on by more regular mechanics, instead of having to either take her to dealerships or strange greasy men who mutter “Metric, huh?  I know I have some metric sockets around here somewhere … ,” but other than that, I’ve always been very happy with my little girl.  She’s done famously for me in very trying situations and performed far above any expectations I had when I first bought her new in 1994.  She was my retirement present to myself, y’see, and I’ve never had much of a reason to regret buying her.

That having been said, there is the small matter of her tail lights.  Not the bulbs … the entire assembly!

Y’see, they don’t seem to last very long.  I no sooner replace one, either driver’s or passenger’s side, when the other gets broken by some dork backing up … who, of course, doesn’t bother to even stop afterward.  Or they get busted out by some moronic teenager with a hammer and a need to make as many people as possible miserable like him … God, save us from friggin’ teenage angst!

Once, it was a pre-teen showing off a side kick to his friends in a Wal-Mart parking lot.  I was loading groceries into the back of the truck at the time when, suddenly – heeYAHH! – Chuck No-brain kicks in my driver’s side tail lights.  His mother and father were right there, too!  His friends ran off; his mother said, with a tsk in her voice, “Oh, now look what you’ve done to that car, Junior;”  His father smacked the kid on the back of his head and was dragging him toward their station wagon when I yelled, “HEY!”

Poppa turned, momma turned, and kid started to run (but, since poppa had a firm grip on him,he only ended up burning off a little sneaker rubber).  Poppa, in a polite, but annoyed voice, replied, “Yes?  Can I help you?”

I walked around to the back of my truck and pointed at the tail light.  “Your kid just broke my tail light, mister!”

“Oh, I’m sure he didn’t,” he replied, turning back around while momma stared at him.

“I was standing right here, pal!”  I shot back, walking after them.  “He kicked it out right in front of you. You slapped him on the back of the head and started getting the hell out of here before I said anything, and now you wanna play like nothing happened?”

“It was broken before he kicked and that’s all there is to it!”  He’d reached his station wagon and started yelling at his family to get in the car.  I took out a pen and piece of paper and jotted down his license plate number.

“Hey, APL682!” I called, waving the piece of paper in front of his rolled up window.  He flipped me off and started his engine.  “You see those cameras up there?  The one’s on the roof?  Well, I got your number and those camera filmed him kicking out my tail light, as well as your walking away from the scene of a crime.  You better start practicing what you intend to tell the police when they pick you up, because I’ll be calling them the instant you drive off.”

He turned his engine off and stared at me.  I waited for about a ten count, then shrugged and walked back toward the store and the pay phones.  I got about ten feet away before he caught up with me and tried to give me a twenty dollar bill, “for the damages, okay already?”

I held my hands back, letting the twenty fall to the ground and motioned him over to my truck, where I fished the receipt for the last replacement tail light out of the glove box.  That one had cost me sixty bucks and some change.  I showed it to him and he started to cuss.

He covered the cost, but that was a rare exception.  In the fifteen years that I’ve owned my little pick-up, I’ve had to buy no fewer than twenty-four tail lights.  Now I keep two rolls of tinted clear tape in the glove compartment, one red and one yellow, just to make temporary repairs, and – when I once found a parts store that was selling replacement tail lights for only forty bucks each, I bought two spares for each side.  (I used all of them within a few years.)

Well, I have to register my pick-up in my new state and, here, that means I have to pay a police officer ten bucks to inspect my car before I can do so.  The inspection is to check my VIN against the hot sheets and to ensure that my ride is street legal … so I bought a replacement passenger side tail light today for a little over eighty bucks and installed it a couple of minutes ago.

I’ll do the inspection on Monday.

I sure hope the new tail light lasts until then!

You should talk to MY retirement investment broker!

For those of you who sneer at a military career, lemme hit you with a few facts.

1.  My retirement fund:  I’ve received just shy of $200,000 in convenient monthly installments from my retirement fund since retiring.  Call them dividends or interest, since it will never deplete the principle.  The majority of this dividend, incidentally, is not taxable by either state or federal, so it represents a much larger overall spending amount.

2.  My medical insurance:  My wife and I have received, according to the yearly report from my medical insurance report, over $2,000,000 worth of medical care since I retired, including hospitalization on several occasions, surgery on more than one occasion (including one elective procedure that would have  run over a hundred grand … and been refused by damn near every civilian HMO), and around fifteen years of regular doctors visits … basically for free.  We have received health care of the highest standards, whenever we needed it, with no debates from bean counters over need or cost … and we’ve spent, out-of-pocket, only around a grand a year.

3.  My life insurance:  When I die, provided the world goes on living after the event (which I’m still dubious about), Dian will keep receiving the exact same medical care, 95% of the same monthly dividend payments, and all the various side benefits (discount shopping, lodging, and so forth) that are so numerous that I’m not even bothering with listing them all.

If Dian or I live to see 90 (which, since I have no intentions of ever dying, should be easy), and assuming that the steady increase as to the percentage of my monthly dividend payments, and also assuming a spiked increase in medical care, then my retirement will have ended up providing the equivalent of around one hundred millions dollars.

Of course, I have to serve for over twenty years, drown, get shot a few times, cut a few dozen times, divorced a little, bury over a dozen close friends, and end up in and out of a couple of military loony bins to earn that retirement, but – hey – no career is without a little stress, right?

So, when any of you in the proper age group are considering what to do with your life, or if any of your close-to-high-school-graduation kids or grandkids ask for your advise as to what they should do next, might I suggest you seriously consider the only career left in the country that not only pays well from day one, but has on-the-job training up the ass, its own training centers for advance instruction, astonishing room for advancement, medical benefits second to none, and probably the most kick-ass retirement plan around?

Best of all, join at seventeen, retire at thirty-seven … and then go to college (on whatever version of the GI Bill that exists at the time, saving tons of money) and then start a brand new career, backstopped by a retirement that will never, ever, get ponzi-ed or go bankrupt.

In conclusion, to those of you who have sneered at my and others military careers, please feel free to suck it.

Just another day on Shamus Street

My sax playing neighbor next door still hasn’t figured out what a spit valve is for … his notes sound like Linda Lovelace has returned to life and had combined her trademark oral sex and opera.  Me, I’ll be glad if he finally figures out when to take a breath.  The gasping for air between songs is getting a little worrisome, but – again – the image of Ms. Lovelace comes to mind.

I was standing on the porch, looking at my twenty mile view and watching the weather.  My cat was sitting on my feet … no, not at my feet, but on my feet; the porch is a concrete slab and he refuses to wear the little booties I knitted him.  I was watching the horizon, he was watching whatever it is that cats watch, and our neighbor was phlegmatically gargling and gasping his way through The Flight of the Bumblebee, when my neighbor on my other side let his trained rats out to poop.

Nope, they couldn’t possibly be dogs.  For one, even small dogs have some small bit of brains, whereas these trained rats of his exhibit all the reasoning ability of a small rock or pop singer.  For another, no matter how stupid, I’ve never met a dog in my entire life without the slightest shred of survival skills, which makes these two suicidal critters trained rats … slightly trained rats.

I only give them credit for being slightly trained due to two things; 1.  They managed to master basic potty training, and 2. they learned how to bark, which had to be a bitch teaching trained rats to bark like dogs.

As soon as they came outside, they made a bee-line for my porch and set to yapping, showing off their impression and their suicidal nature.  Tiger, my little tom cat, hissed and spit back at them, safely perched at the apex of Mt. Johnston, having spent a few seconds conquering that difficult north face armed only with pitons.

Ignoring the pain and blood, I calmly drew my pistol and shot both of the little rats.  Their surprised yips and disgusted expressions made my experiments with loads all worthwhile.  I carefully returned my water pistol to my pocket as they raced back home, stinking of a combination of garlic juice and aniseed oil.  The revolted shouts from within their home was also heart warming and made my drive to the doctor (an emergency catectomy and a small transfusion, nothing major) all the better for it.

I could hear Linda finishing off another client and gargling a triumphant aria as I drove off.  Just a routine day on Shamus Street, nothing but sax and violence.

Sigh

Life is kinda strange.

I spent the majority of my marriage supporting my wife, now I’m being supported by her.  Oh, my retirement still kicks in a little over a grand a month, but that’s not even a third of our total income now.  To … I dunno, let’s say compensate … to compensate for this reversal of roles, I’ve thrown myself into the entire ‘house husband’ thing.  Perhaps a little too much.

I get up with her at six and, while she gets ready for work, fix a breakfast tailored to her nutritional needs and tastes.  Lots of fresh fruit with something eggy and a little extra protein on the side.  Today it was cantaloupe and banana salad, and eggs benedict (with carefully cooked Egg Beaters taking the place of a poached egg and a tofu sausage paddy instead of a bit of ham).  I drive her in and stop at the store to pick up whatever I need for lunch.

Lunch is the big meal of the day, the fancy schmancy meal.  Breakfast is usually variations on a theme (fruit, eggs, and bread) and dinner is generally oatmeal with fruit … which works for us rather well, oddly enough, provided I make sure Dian has a small helping of chicken before bed (she needs the extra protein to ensure waking without a headache).

So lunch is where I get to play around, trying new stuff and showing off.  Yesterday, I bought a lovely slab of salmon and prepared a variation of a Salmon in Lemon Brodetto with a Pea Puree recipe I found.  Instead of serving the salmon on top of the puree and brodetto, I plated a baby spinach and roasted pepper salad in a shallow bowl, topped it with the hot salmon to slightly wilt the fresh spinach, then added the lemon brodetto in sort of a cross between a drizzle and a swirl on the salmon, and spooned the puree onto the center.  I served it with a steamed broccoli and mushroom dish and lemon ice tea.

Today, I’m trying out a rather nifty baked potato recipe that features a rosemary infused sour cream and some of the leftover salmon.

In-between cooking (and the somewhat excessive washing up after cooking that experimental stuff calls for) means, I clean the house, do the laundry, take care of the shopping, and keep the budget.  Oh, and take care of the cat … who is a total pain at times.

And you know what?

It’s friggin’ boring!!  It takes me all of twenty minutes for breakfast, two hours for lunch, and maybe fifteen minutes for dinner.  Laundry is a matter of minutes and only needs my attention whenever the machines stop.  The dishes are negligible, since I clean as I cook (I discovered that not doing so results in total pandemonium while cooking), the house only needs around an hour worth of attention each day, and the budget is simply a matter of making sure that the bills get paid on time.

Even with writing, surfing the web, and playing the occasional computer game, I still have copious free time!  Geez, no wonder house wives drift into affairs … it’s to fight the boredom off!

I’m going to have to either take up a hobby of some sort or spend more time on the home gym I’m building.

Like I said, life is kinda strange, huh?

Occam’s Raisinettes

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, Baby!

I attended a lecture at the community college yesterday, where a female psychologist put forth her theories as to why men are so much more “a creature of sexual needs” (a direct quote) than women.  During the question and answer session afterward, one of the women asked “why is it that men seemed to be drawn to large breasts so much” and the professor managed, rather neatly, to tie her reply into her main theories and use the answer to segue into that days lessons.  I was very impressed by her technique, even if her theory was total swill.

After the class was done, I introduced myself and asked if she had a few minutes to chat about my possibly joining her class in progress, instead of waiting for the next semester.

Y’see, it turns out that I was one credit shy of earning my AA in Communication at my last college.  I took a gym class for fun, knowing that – as a retired member of the military – the requirement for a physical education credit was automatically waived.  It’s something that all colleges and universities do for military, waive the necessity for a sweat and grunt class … something about our going through boot camp, I suppose.  I’ve never asked.

I should have.  It turns out that, whereas the vast majority of major universities and colleges might waive the need for such a class, Texas two-year colleges sure don’t, or at least not the one I was attending.  (Nor, for reasons I really can’t get my head around, will they waive their requirement for all graduates to attend graduation ceremonies.  I offered to pay for the gown and cap, and then to pay for attending the ceremony in spite of not going, but they refused to back down.  I even tried logic, pointing out that they don’t even hand out diplomas at the ceremony, just blank rolls of paper wrapped with a blue ribbon, so what was the point?  No good; I would not graduate unless I attended, which sort of made the entire “missing one credit” sorta moot, since there was no way I was going to drive all the way back to Texas just to sit in an auditorium for a couple of hours!)

Thankfully, the local college was willing to accept all my credits.  However, I can’t just take the one credit I was missing for my Texas college AA, I have to take the credits that are required for a local AA … which come down to six classes.  (Oh, here’s a giggle for ya:  PhysEd isn’t one of them!  I mentioned this omission to the guy who was making up my schedule and he replied “Veterans don’t need to take any … didn’t you know that?”)  The six classes break down to two necessary to round out the core requirements for an AA out here (another college level math class and an additional science of my choosing [just can't be the one I already have]), and an additional four credits for the “on-campus” requirements.

Well, the math was an easy choice.  Since I’ve already taken the Texas “Math for Poets” class, I simply signed up for the local equivilent, which turns out to be “Math for Poets who Own a Really Good Calculator.”  For the science credit, I decided to go with an Advanced Anatomy course … might as well put the military medical training to good use.  Which, of course, left the four additional credits.

They offer a Creative Writing class that counts for credit, so I signed up for that.  Ditto the Debate class, since I had a ball doing debate for my last college.  For giggles, I also signed up for an Acting class; not Drama, Acting.  It’s not a class that studies drama or stage work or whatever, it’s a class that actually covers the basics of performing as an actor.

Well, that left one more credit, so I asked around and discovered that the Advanced Psychology class was well thought of by many.  I could do the Writing and Acting classes during the short Winter semester, and take care of the math, science and debate classes during Spring … but I didn’t really want to take anymore than three classes in Spring, which meant either taking one Summer class (and, of the classes I needed, only the math one was offered during Summer and there ain’t no way I’m taking any college level math course during a short semester!), wait until next Fall to finish up, or somehow manage to talk one of the professors into letting me join up with a class already goings, in a semester that was two thirds over.

The debate coach/teacher actually laughed at the idea, since passing his course requires one to actually participate in at least four meets, of which only one remained for the semester.  The acting director/teacher/dipshit also laughed (but it was a fake laugh and badly done) since passing his course required one to perform in two different plays, of which only one remained (“A charming comedy that I wrote while studying the works of O’Neal, but with a decidedly Williams flavor and a dash of Gilbert and Sullivan in the dialog.”)

Both the math and science teachers were game, but I’d have to catch up with all the assignments prior to finals.  Yeah, right; so that left either the writing class (which I was sure I could catch up all those assignments with no problem) or psychology.  The writing teacher is a very nice lady, even if her bookcases were lined with Irish poetry, who simply said “No; I’m sorry, but no.”

Which is why I attended a lecture, listened to a very silly theory, and was talking to the psych teacher.  She was, given my background, game and would, provided I provide her with a single research paper that covered the entirety of the chapters that she’d already covered, even let me skip catching up on all the various assignments the rest of the class had already done.  However, she insisted on an honest discussion regarding her lecture in order to discover if I was worth her accepting me as a late student.

I gave her one of my more memorable irresistible expressions (I cocked a slender eyebrow at her; the right one … I didn’t want to overwhelm her) and asked how honest she wanted me to me?

She paused for a moment before answering (the eyebrow, no doubt) and then, with a small smile, told me that she always insisted on totally honesty and frankness from her students.

I shrugged and mentioned that, although it was a masterful example of teaching and a very well given lecture, that I disagreed with damn near everything she said.  Media is not responsible for molding male self-image, other males are … and, quite often, women as well.  Men don’t try to live up to the male stereotypes created by the mass markets, men try to live up to the self-images that they build while growing, ofter from their father’s examples.  As for male sexuality and breast size fetishism … well, it’s less of a product of a gender controlled television and film industry as it is simple nature.

She cocked her head and asked me to explain that last one, so I grinned and reminded her that, within a few hours of being born, every baby is welcomed into the world with a woman’s face smiling at them in ecstasy and fed from a boob larger than their head … is it any wonder that men spend the rest of their lives trying to recreate/recapture that?

I start classes on Monday.

I can think of good arguments for both yes and no …

Today’s odd thought:  Do cannibals indulge in oral sex?

Um … a quick question for anyone who sees, or have read, New Moon.

Okay, according to Stephenie Meyer’s fictional universe, vampires tend to twinkle during twilight … which I’m still not sure exactly how being sparkly in low light situations is a viable survival trait, but that’s beside the point.

If any of you see New Moon, or have read the novel, please answer a question that’s been bugging me:  If vampires twinkle as the light dims, what the hell do werewolves do?  Glow during full moons?  Have chocolate flavored farts?  Manifest full orchestration whenever they run?  Smell like fresh baked cookies?  What?

(Yeah, I figure any writer who’d come up with sparkly vampires couldn’t resist cookie-scented werewolves … “

Alternating?! WTF!

Okay, is it too friggin’ much to ask that God or Nature or whomever shows just a little damn consistency?

It’s been alternating snow and rain today.  Alternating.  Snow and rain, alternating.

It was the official forecast and, by God, it’s exactly what bloody happened!

No nice snow fall that I could philosophically watch, marveling at the complexities of crystals and reveling in the delight that is sitting inside a warm home, a mug of cocoa in hand, while the world turns into a friggin’ Christmas card outside one’s window!  That would have been nice.  That would have been pleasant.  That would have made going out for errands a bit of an adventure, a bit of fun.

Nor was there a nice rain to set the mood of the day, so I couldn’t sit with a cup of hot tea, listening to the thunder and take a nap to the sound of rain on the roof.  That would have been very nice.  Or I could have cuddled up with Dian, the two of us with good books and hot cups of whatever, and blown off driving to the post office or whatever.  If we absolutely had to go out, driving in the rain is a little damp, but doable.

But no .. no mug of cocoa, no cup of tea; no little damp, no adventure and fun; no philosophical musing, no pleasant cuddling, no nap, no nothing!

Instead, I get alternating snow and rain!  What the hell do you drink for bloody alternating bloody snow and bloody rain!?!  And have you ever tried driving in the crap?  Huh?!  The roads were slick as snot on oil, just as I got used to one road condition, the friggin’ weather would change and there we go slip sliding away again!  And fuck walking in the damn crap!  I must have fallen on my ass a dozen damn times, each time in a fucking puddle of fucking ice water!!

Dian, who stayed nice a warm and dry in the truck, may not stop laughing for a week!  She might have actually pulled something when I slid into a combination mud and ice water puddle, she may have done herself a injury there.

I checked the weather on-line when we got home, after I had a nice long hot shower.  No more than a couple of hours in any direction equaled straight snow.  No rain, no sleet, none of that silly-ass ‘freezing rain’ goofiness; snow and plenty of it.  Where we are?

Alternating snow and rain.

I never thought I’d say it, but I miss Deep East Texas.  I checked … an overnight low of 55 tonight.  Might get some thunder storms tomorrow.  Thunder, lightening, lots of rain … no snow.

On the one hand, lots of mowing and a pool to constantly deal with; on the other, no snow, just rain.  Okay, I still have a better deal here, but, still, alternating snow and rain, fer pity sake!

So I found this pistol … (conclusion)

“Excellent!  Now, do you have any idea what it is that we want?” Her eyes were gleaming as she asked.

“Give me a second, Doc,” I replied, holding up a hand.  I started pacing again.

Well, what could I possibly have that would change the future?  A book?  Something, like a book or perhaps a tape, that gave them instructions on how to build something?  Something that they’d forgotten with the passage of time?  What could be important enough, but forgotten?  “Is it something medical, maybe?”

“It is something medical, definitely, Mr. Harper,” she crowed, clapping her hands.  “It’s you!“

This time she was ready for me and froze me before I could even move one step.

“You’re acting silly again, Mr. Harper,” she tsk’d at me.  “Please relax and listen, okay?”

“Okay, just lay it out for me, please.  No more guessing games.”

“Fine, be that way.” She walked to the center of the table and paused to gather her thoughts.  “In a couple hundred years, from your point of view, the people of the Earth will be on the endangered species list, due to pollution and disease.  Then, with the timing of the truly lucky, a group of scientists will come up with a way to cure humanity by adjusting their DNA.  At first, this technology will be used only to cure, adapt, and prevent, but then – after the species no longer had to worry about dying – they started using it to ensure good eyesight, good vascular health,  to cure obesity, to prevent achondroplasia, to stop heart disease, to … well, suffice it to say that they used it to optimize the human condition and leave it at that.

“Then they got a little carried away with themselves.  Having saved humanity from all the various ills and conditions that once plagued it, they decided to go a step further and cure the common cold.” She spread her hands apologetically.  “I know this sounds a little stupid, but bear with me.  Since they couldn’t stop the conditions that produced various germs and bacteria outside of humans, they decided to change humans so that external germs and bacteria would no long harm them.  When they were finished, they had people who’s average life spans far exceeded any of your era, who were hale and hearty all the way to the end of their days, and who could laugh in the face of the common cold or flu.”

“I hate to say it, doc, but that sounds pretty damn good.”  They released control of my body within a few seconds of her speech, so I could take another sip of my cooling coffee before added, “Me, I had every single one of those damn childhood diseases and most of the adult ones, and – hey, take it from me – they are no fun whatsoever.”

She locked eyes with me over the rim of my cup and gave me a gimlet look.  “Yes, but neither is discovering that all newborns have started dying within a few days of being born.” She nodded at my expression and added, “Y’see, once mankind no longer had to worry about germs and bacteria, mankind stopped working so hard to prevent their growth, to decontaminate and destroy their age-old enemies.  They forgot to fear them.

“Then, over time, they forgot that germ and bacteria constantly mutate.  At first, for a few hundred year, it wasn’t a problem, but the mutations continued until our changed bodies no longer were able to deal with them.”

“Oh damn!” I exclaimed, sitting up.  “Lemme guess … your newborns are being killed by the mutated germs and such?”

“And we don’t have anyway of stopping it, correct.  You, however, do.  Since you, as you said, had all the classic childhood illnesses and most of the adult ones, your immune system has the ability to protect you not only from those illnesses, but to help you fight off any mutated versions.”

“AH!” I shouted, standing.  “I get it!  You’re a mimsy!  You need my blood to save your infants!”

“No … well, yes … maybe, but not only your blood, Mr. Harper.  We need you, all of you, to use as a base line example of a naturally healthy human.” She stepped to the edge of he table and raised her arms in supplication.  “We need to study your blood barrier.  We need to study your kidneys.  We need to study every aspect of you that makes you different from us, to see where we erred and what needs to be done to return us to the self-healing machine we were designed to be and that you still are.”

“Ah,” I muttered, much less excitedly.  “I see … you need me …”

And it dawned on me what they were asking.  “You want me to come to the future?  You want me to live over a thousand years in the future?!”

“Well, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, yes we would,” she agreed, with a small smile.  “In addition to knowing your medical background, we also know that you have nothing holding you to this time and place.  No family, no surviving relatives, and no life to speak of; you live on your military retirement, spend most of your time in your house, and have no close friends anymore.  Were you to drop off the face of the planet, only the retirement section of the Pentagon would notice … and only then because you stopped cashing your checks.”

“Yeah, but it’s still my life, to do with what I please!”  I shot back, a little upset.  “If I go with you, then what will I have, eh?  A life as a penniless lab experiment?  I’d no longer have any freedom, no longer have a chance to be myself.”

“Where do you get these ideas from, Mr. Harper?  You have already been accepted as a veteran, complete with all medical and financial benefits, by our government.  Of course, you will be the only veteran in the system and the system is being reinvented for you, but so what?  As for being an experiment with no freedom, nothing could be further from the truth!  You will be an honored and revered connection to our past, the first of your kind, and granted all the rights and freedoms of any citizen.  You will have a private apartment at our center, free to come and go as you please, and only requested – not required, requested – to participate in medical appointments at your convenience.

“Plus you already know I must have accepted, because you serched the public records and discovered that I disappeared around this time, right?”

“Plus we’re reasonably sure you accepted, because we searched the public records, what few survived to our time, and discovered that you …”

“Gimme your money!”  The guy who came into the kitchen through the patio door with the pistol in his hand interrupted her statement.  “Wallet, now, asshole!”

No mask, so he didn’t care if I saw him … so he didn’t intend on leaving me alive.  I smiled at Dr. Quistian and quipped, “Lemme guess … the records showed that I vanished?”

The asshole with the gun slammed it across my face, screaming at me to shut up and give him my wallet.  I saw stars for a moment and heard … a woman yelling.

The asshole heard it too and immediately spun to cover the doorway.  Seeing nobody there, but still hearing a woman’ voice, he finally followed his ears to the table … and froze, staring at the little sexy woman wiggling her tiny rump at him and blowing kisses over her shoulder.  His jaw dropped and I stepped up, screwed my feet as best I could into the wood floor, and hit him in the right temple with a looping right fit, doing my best to punch through his head by at least a foot.

He slammed into the glass doors and slumped to the floor, turning a bleary eye in my direction and squeezing off a single shot before going under.  The bullet caught me high in the belly on the left and slammed me back against the counter.

“NO!”

I looked down and frowned at the blood, trying to concentrate.  Left side, high … liver, right.  I felt lightheaded and started to laugh.  “Damn.  Hey, doc … you want my blood still?  Better get a sponge, quick!”  The room bent a little and I could hear the ocean.  Judy ran into the room, only ten year old and showing off her new dress.  She spun, her smile lighting up the room, and said, “MR. HARPER!  COME TO THE TABLE!  YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT TO THE TABLE, NOW!!”

I frowned and stumbled toward her.  She ran back out of the room and her doll, the one she left all over the house, stood up and screamed at me to come to it.  What the … I took another stumbling step and fell forward onto the table top.  There was a bright flash of light and a six foot showgirl in a silly magician’s outfit started yelling for medical technicians.

“Oh … hey, doc,” I coughed, trying to focus.  “Sorry about your future, but mine’s … mine’s h-here and I gotta go.  B-better luck … with the … next guy, ‘kay?”

A couple of guys in white slapped pressure bandages on my belly and back, but I knew it was over.  The pain faded and I felt a calm peacefulness descend as they lifted me onto a floating board.  My mind cleared and …

And I wasn’t … I felt … “What the hell just happened?” I asked clearly.

“It’s okay, Mr. Harper,” Dr. Quistian was keeping pace with the board as the two men guided me through a doorway.  I couldn’t see any lights, but everything was brightly lit.  We passed doors and people too busy celebrating to notice a terminally gut shot man being transported on a magic board.  “You were shot, but got to the portal fast enough for the techs to slap a couple of status compresses onto your wound.  You’re being taken to our medical facility for repair and recuperation.”

“Why aren’t I bleeding to death?  I swear he nailed me in the liver.”  I didn’t even feel light headed.

“Well, medicine isn’t my field, but I believe that the status compresses somehow not only stop the bleeding, but also automatically start infusing fluids to replace any lost blood?”  We turned a corner rather quickly and she steadied me against falling off.  “Blood leaks out into the status compress and is automatically returned where its suppose to go, or so I’ve been told.  At any rate, you’ll be fine.”

“Huh,” I looked around at the walls going by.  “So I’m really in the future, then?”

“Yes, such as it is.  I hope it doesn’t disappoint you.”

I touched the slightly glowing pad on my stomach.  “Impressed as hell so far … say, I was meaning to ask you, back when I was trying to make up my mind on whether or not to come:  How does my coming here change your future?  I guess it’s a moot question now, but … “  A part of the wall slid open and the two techs slid into the opening with me.  The one on the right tapped a control … oh, an elevator.  They still use elevators.  Go figure.

The walls started to close between me and Dr. Quistian, when she said, “Wait!”  The walls paused and she leaned in for a moment, “The answer is that we, all of us, now have one, Mr. Harper.  Thank you.”

I blinked and said, “Then you’d better call me ‘Bill,’ Dr. Quistian.”

She smiled and replied, “Hello, Bill.  I’m June.”

The doors closed.

So I found this pistol … (Part 9)

I smiled kindly into her pretty eyes and, as hard as possible, slammed my hand onto the table top.  Once more, everything jumped, including her, and I came up off of the chair in a instant and actually managed to make one step before I froze.

“Now, now, Mr. Harper,” she chided, picking herself up.  “That was a bit overly dramatic, don’t you think?  And also fairly silly, considering.” She righted the little chair, ottoman, and side table, and then sat back down.  For a moment, she simply regarded me with a slightly disappointed pout, then she reached over to the table and, finding her cup missing, started looking for it.

When she found it, she set it back on my kitchen table, doing that enlargement trick for the second time, and – in a very courteous voice – asked for a refill.  Without moving, I straightened up, took the cup, and walked to the counter.  I was pitting everything I had against their control, but I still filled the cup, added the cream and sugar, and served it to her again, ending with a humiliating little bow.

“Thank you, Mr. Harper, and I trust I’ve made my point?” She took the fresh cup and grinned at me over the rim.

I strained as hard as I could, but it was like trying to scratch an itch on a severed limb.  My  body was still there, I could still feel all the normal sensations, but the most I could do, voluntarily, was blink.  For all my internal panic, my heart still beat normally, I still breathed calmly; my body apparently didn’t care who was in charge.

“Please have a seat and listen for just a little longer.” I sat back down and my body automatically assumed a comfortable position.  “Now, as I was saying, none of this would be necessary were it possible for one of us, any one of us, to step through into your time.  We would simply come through, do what was necessary, and then return.  Unfortunately, it’s impossible, both to enter your time completely or to make the return trip. “

“Which is why you need me or somebody like me, right?”  I surprised her by speaking out loud almost as much as I surprised myself.  “You need a native to use as an agent, to control, to do all the things that you need done to change your lives and screw the billions you’ll fuck over to get it, right?!”

When I spoke, she leapt to her feet and started barking commands into that communication device she’d used earlier, but when I got to the bit about the needing me as their agent, she stopped and stared at me in unconcealed shock … then threw back her head and laughed.

I still couldn’t move, so I put everything I had into a manly sneer and hard stare.  Now that I knew, and they knew I knew, that I could break their control, even if it was just to speak, I was useless to them.  Try to use me as an agent and I’d be screaming at everyone I met to get the hell away from me.  I’d end up in a loony bin, but at least I’d be the one in there.  My precious identity would still be intact, my mind would be my own.

She finally stopped laughing, told whomever was on the other end of the line to put everything on hold, and walked to the edge of the table.  “Mr. Harper … listen, would you mind terribly if I called you Bill?”

“Mr. Harper will do, thank you.”

“As you wish,” she sighed.  “Mr. Harper, have you ever had a moment when it became shockingly clear that, although you’d been talking with somebody for the better part of an hour, you hadn’t been communicating at all?”

I remembered important talks I’d had with Judy, back when she was a teen.  With Judy just before she went to college.  With my ex-wife after Judy died.  “Yeah, I guess … so?”

She spread her hands and rolled her eyes.  “Because, you silly man, that’s exactly what’s been happening here!  We have been talking for quite a while, but neither of us have been communicating!” She shook her head and took her little top hat off, revealing dark red hair.  Standing there, hat in hand, she reminded me of my ex-wife at Judy’s grave.  “It’s my fault, really.  You seemed to understand everything so well that I didn’t spell it out.  I treated you like a prize pupil and trusted that you’d work it out properly.”

“Okay, I get it; this is the part where you try to convince me what a swell person you really are and how badly I’ve misjudged you.  Go for it, I dare you!   Convince me that you have no intention of hollowing out my skull and installing a control center so you can sit your pert derriere in there and work me as your puppet.  Show me a single mistake in logic and I’ll even bow my head so you can start cutting!”

“Eeeuw!” She wrinkled her nose up and involuntarily stepped back from me, staring at me in disgust.  “That is – Oh My God!  Ick, Ick, ICK!  – that is sooo disgusting!  Hollow out your skull and actually climb in?!  How do you live with that imagination!?” She wiped her hands down her arms and added, “I feel like I need a shower, I really do!”

“I’m sorry,” I blurted out, reflexively.

“You should be!  What a terrible thing to say.  I’m going to need therapy just to get that image out of my head.  Yuck!” With one final squirm of revulsion, she stepped back up and – carefully controlling herself – asked, “What is the future?”

“What?”  I frowned, puzzled.  “Well, it’s the future, right?  That which has not happened yet or some such.”

“Fair enough definition, Mr. Harper,” she agreed.  “So how could I possibly ..” she stopped and shivered again. “Sorry, but that was really a repulsive image, you know.  Did you come up with that by yourself or did you get it from a book or one of those horror movies that were so popular in your time?”

“I don’t know, really.  It was just something that sprang to mind.  I don’t remember reading anything with that particular bit of nastiness and I don’t like horror films.”

“Whew … well, anyway, how could I possibly use a time machine to change my future?” Seeing my baffled look, she shrugged and added, “Well, who’s future did you think I was talking about changing, anyway?  Yours or mine?”

“Um … both … neither; I guess I was sort of thinking of ‘the future.’  Y’know?  ‘THE FUTURE!’  An all inclusive future, one that starts about in ten minutes over thataway and which includes all of mankind.  That future.”

“Ah, thought so,” she nodded.  “Okay, you almost had it right.  I need you to help me change the future, Mr. Harper, but it’s the all inclusive future, the one that includes all of mankind, but actually starts in more like one thousand years and ten minutes over thataway.  In short, I need your help to change my future and the future of mankind in my time.”

“Ahhhh,” I started and stopped.  I sat there for a moment, then groused, “If you expect me to be able to figure out impossible riddles, I’m going to need a fresh cup of coffee, damn it!”

“OH … sorry.”

My whole body jerked in delayed reaction when they suddenly released their hold on me.  I glanced at the doorway, but – instead – simply got up, found a clean mug and poured myself a fresh cup of coffee, damn it.  This one, however, got a hefty shot of whiskey added.  I was in mid-gulp when I noticed the interest on the little woman’s face and proper manners took over.  “Would you care for something a little stiffer than just a cup of coffee, Miss … listen, what the hell is your name?”

“Quistian; June Quistian.  Doctor June Quistian, if you insist on being formal, and yes, please, thank you.  Is that alcohol?” She leaned as far forward as was possible staring at the bottle.

“Uh, yeah.  Whiskey, actually.  Have you every had whiskey?”  I held the bottle closer so she could study the label.

“Goodness, no, but I’ve read about it quite a bit and often wondered what it would taste like.” Her little cell phone tweedled at her and she did something to shut it off without opening it. “We don’t have any alcohol in the future.”

I almost dropped the bottle while adding a splash to her coffee.  “What?!”

“No alcohol of any kind, save that used medically,” she confirmed, accepting the cup I sat down on the table, which obligingly shrank to fit her tiny hand.  Her little cell phone went off again and she shut it off once more. “No tobacco, either.  No recreational drugs of any sort, in all honesty.” Her cell phone started beeping and tweedling and vibrating to beat the band.  She made it vanish, then cautiously sniffed the coffee and took a tentative sip.

When she stopped coughing, she looked at her cup with pleased surprise and drained it in a steady quaff.  Then he sat down where she had been standing and concentrated on breathing for a bit.  Afterward, say in a minute, she contemplatively said, “We no longer have any drug related injuries, accidents, or crimes … but we also don’t have anything that tastes nearly that good.  I find myself wondering if it was a fair trade after all.  Thank you, Mr. Harper.”

“Would you like a refill, Dr. Quistian?”

“No!” She barked, then giggled and corrected herself.  “No, thank you.  A unique experience and one, I feel, that should remain so, if only for the peace of mind of my associates.”

“Well, tell me if you change your mind, please.  Now, as for your riddle, I find myself at a loss.  How can anything I do, now, affect the only the future’s future?  Do you have a computer that good?”

“No and, thankfully, neither does anyone else,” she replied, sitting back down.  “You really can’t think of any other possible explanation?  Then let me give you a hint:  It takes a massive amount of energy to climb a mountain a mile high, but only one single step to fall to the bottom.”

I looked at her blankly and sat back down myself.  If I understood her, they couldn’t enter our time, other than as these doll like projection sort of things, mostly due to the massive energy needed to do so.  That would be climbing the mountain, then.  But she’d also mentioned that they couldn’t make a return trip, so what’s the deal about falling off the top?  “I still haven’t the foggiest, Dr. Quistian.”

“Okay then, one last hint, one that’s been in front of you all the time.” She picked up her empty cup and assumed a magician’s pose, displaying it on the palm of one hand.  Then she set it down on the kitchen table, where it expanded back to normal size.  “Now do you see?”

I picked up the cup.  “You can’t pass though, but my cup can?”

She nodded agreement, but added, “But only because it started there.”

Then she shut up, put her chin in her hand, and watched me with raised eyebrows.

Okay, I was suppose to figure this out, then?  I heaved a sigh and looked at the cup.  Did she want me to take some item of theirs?  “Can you pass through inanimate objects from your time to mine?

“Nope.”

Hmmm … okay, that meant that they could only pass over objects that started here in the first place.  “Do you want to return some item that was originally from this time?”

“Nope.”

Hmmm … okay, that meant that they … that meant that … that meant … absolutely nothing.  I stood and started pacing on the assumption that the increased blood flow might help me think this through.  They can’t come through themselves, nor can they pass anything from their time to ours, except as a projection.  They could pass my cup back and forth, however … I stopped pacing.  “Do you want something from this time?  Something that will somehow change your futures?”

“Yes!” She sat back in relief.

“Is that all?”  No wonder she’d laughed.  “Wait … I must have what you want, or else why bother to drag me into this, right?”

“Excellent!  Now, do you have any idea what it is that we want?” Her eyes were gleaming as she asked.

“Give me a second, Doc,” I replied, holding up a hand.  I started pacing again.

Well, what could I possibly have that would change the future?  A book?  Something, like a book or perhaps a tape, that gave them instructions on how to build something?  Something that they’d forgotten with the passage of time?  What could be important enough, but forgotten?  “Is it something medical, maybe?”

“It is something medical, definitely, Mr. Harper,” she crowed, clapping her hands.  “It’s you!“

This time she was ready for me and froze me before I could even move one step.