The Electric Dream Chair

The Electric Dream Chair

--Spence Colby



    “Gentlemen, this is the mode of outer space travel of the future.” Jeb paused, his hand clutching a handful of the old, yellowed sheet to survey the men seated around the conference table. They were all of a type; dark suits, conservative ties, blank faces, and eyes as hard as crystal. “I give y’all the Assisted Dreaming Travel Vehicle!” He pronounced it VEE-hickel. He hated his Deep South accent and fought to suppress it, but when he got nervous it just popped out of him like kudzu in the spring. He realized that it lowered most people’s opinion of his IQ to hear him talkin’ cracker. He grimaced and grabbed a tight hold on his emotions. He straightened and smiled at the men. With a flourish, Jeb jerked off the sheet to reveal a battered and worn LazyBoy recliner done in a faded green plaid print.

    The reaction from the men at the table was not encouraging. They snorted or growled, looking disgusted. They started to sort their papers together in preparation to leaving, mumbling between themselves.

  “Please, gentlemen! A moment is all Ah ask! Lookit here, this here is but a bread-boarded mock-up, the final product could be done in fine leather. And see? Mah wife made this for the demo.” He stroked a tea towel pinned to the backrest cushion of the chair like grannies’ antimacassar. “It’s the NASA symbol. She thought it would be appropriate.” The rather crudely inked logo was slightly crooked and shaky, but Jeb was proud of it nevertheless.

    One of the suits got up and dropped his handout package in the trashcan on his way out the door. Jeb winced. He had spent hours on typing out the presentation materials on his son’s computer and a sizable sum of hard-to-come-by cash at Kinkos making photocopies of all the pages. To see the materials dumped so casually hurt. To see the men dismissing him hurt. He was losing them…and that hurt the most.

    “While this is merely a mock-up, it does work to demonstrate the basic process.” He spun the chair around to reveal the open back loaded with bits and pieces of circuit boards and odd chunks of salvaged equipment.

  “Is that a Dustbuster?” one of the suits asked, leaning closer to squint at the mess of wiring and components.

  “Wah, yessir. Ah’m usin’ that to establish a negative manifold pressure between the intake sensors and the cerebral conductor panel. We would refine that, of course.”

    “Of course…” muttered the man as he rose and headed for the door. The room was emptying rapidly. There were only three men left and they were looking likely to bolt as soon as his back was turned.

    “This is based on a scientific application of the Buddhist principle of ethereal, or astral,  projection. The subconscious mind is capable of traveling in space without the body—dreams are nothing more than the unleashed mind wandering as it wishes--I use a system of assisted and directed dreaming to allow the traveler to influence the direction of travel. Once the dreamer has reached the location he or she is looking for, a simple disconnect will allow him, or her, to drop into that spatial coordinate. No fuss, no muss—just dream and go!” The three remaining men were starting to display wild gleams in their eyes, but Jeb didn’t think it was excitement over his discovery. It had more in common with a trapped animal in appearance.

  “Lookit! The circuit here induces sleep and this here device promotes REM sleep—the sleep stage where we dream. Y’all go to sleep and dream—very relaxin’, really—and the tape player here turns on and plays recorded directions that inspires your mind to head to the place you wish to explore.” He crouched down to pull out a bundle of wires leading to a clunky looking push button switch. “This here is the disconnect unit…”

  The room erupted with the sound of chairs being hastily shoved back and feet rushing for the door. Jeb sighed and stood up to an empty room. He had squandered the last of his savings to reserve this room at the Holiday Inn and make the phone calls to the scientific heads of the country inviting them to come and see his invention. And few of them had come, but he was happy to see the handful that took a chance and came. Now they were gone. He was now officially broke and out of options. No one wanted to hear what he had to say. He flopped down in his chair-cum-spaceship and glumly rubbed his head with both hands. He quickly glanced up when the door opened, a hopeful look in his eye.

  “Oh, excuse me! I thought this room was empty. I was goin’ to clean up.” The hotel housemaid waved a broom in his direction. “You mind if I sweep up?”

    “Naw, Ah’m leavin’ mahself…” Jeb slowly struggled erect and draped the old sheet over his recliner. He knew that as she swept the floor she would be sweeping away his shattered dreams as well.   



  Jeb carefully backed his old rusted pickup truck up to his small two-car garage and punched the button to open the big door. He got out of the truck and trundled out the boards he used to load and unload the chair from the truck bed and set up the ramp. Jeb unstrapped the battered blue tarp he had covering the load and tucked it away inside the garage.  He tussled and tugged, and finally got the chair back inside the dim building and in front of his dinky workbench. He smoothed the sheet over the chair and patted the chair’s arm.

  “Someday, ol’girl, someday. They will see what we kin do.” He sighed and went out, carefully closing and locking the door behind him.

  His wife was a peach, strong and supportive, but Jeb could see the pain and disappointment in her eyes. He knew she didn’t blame him for the lack of success, but it still hurt to see that look on her face, oh so carefully hidden away.  It rankled that he couldn’t seem to do anything to make it right for her. He glanced around the tiny house he had shared with her for twenty-five years. It was cramped and old, falling apart and in need of more than he could afford to provide. But she kept it neat as a pin. The worn counters gleamed. The faded linoleum sparkled. Not a speck of dust marred the tabletops. She was a saint; she had stood behind him and picked him up when he fell and never said a word against him. She didn’t nag or whine about the things he couldn’t give her. She had simply been the good wife he needed but hadn’t earned the right to have. She deserved so much better than this and he had failed her. She should be living in a big house with someone to help her with the chores. Instead, he squandered their slight paycheck to pursue a dream that was now dead and gone and she was still stuck in this shoebox they had moved into after their honeymoon. The bitter lump in his mouth brought a sting of tears to the back of his eyes.   

    He cleared his throat and gave her a shaky smile that disguised nothing. “A fine supper there, ol’girl. Just wonderful. Ah think Ah’ll just go straighten up a few things in the shop. Ah won’t be gone for long.”

    She nodded with a quirk of an answering smile. “Right. And Ah’m ‘sposed to believe that load of hog’s waddle, huh?” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “Y’all remember to come in quiet like and not wake up the boy, alright? Don’t work too late.” She gave him a look of such faith that his heart dang near busted right there and fell out on the floor. He ducked his head so she couldn’t see and grunted something on his way out the door.



  He balled up the sheet and tossed it on the bench. He clicked on the light over the old school chalkboard he had rescued from the dump and studied his chicken scratching. It was something of a joke, a stereotype—the scientist with the board covered in unreadable equations, but Jeb found it very useful. The design of the chair had grown and changed and the chalkboard had proven to be a blessing—the ease of redesigning a section of the device was as simple as a wipe with a damp rag. He picked up a piece of chalk and made some desultory notes on the induction circuitry. There was still something there he wasn’t grasping. The interface wasn’t as clear as it needed to be, but he couldn’t figure out the flaw. He fiddled with switched components and rewired a part of the panel with new chalk lines, but nothing seemed to resolve the issue. He stood and stared at the chalk, a frown line between his eyebrows deep as a furrow after a spring gulleywasher.

  “Wait!” If light bulbs over one’s head weren’t a work of fantasy, this one would have been blinding. “Wah, Ah’ll be swanked! Ah was goin’ about this the wrong way!” he hurriedly cleaned off the entire section and in a quick, firm hand started to sketch in the new circuit arrangement. The lines grew quickly and seemed to snap into the proper order with little conscious effort on his part. He stepped back and rubbed his chin with one hand, smearing white chalk dust over his five-o’clock shadow. He studied the new drawing intently, his eyes sharp. He was muttering numbers and sentence fragments, but no one was there to listen anyway, so he didn’t care to notice that he was talking to himself. It helped him think.

    “Dang! Ah do believe that will work!” He spun the chair around and grabbed a handful of tools and dropped to his knees and started to gut out the chair’s components. Pieces flew and his muttering grew louder.

    Uncounted hours later, he was finally done with the rework. He stood and surveyed his handiwork and smiled tiredly. He rubbed the grit and soreness from his eyes and knew he would pay for this excess tomorrow at the plant, but his day job hardly mattered to him at the moment. The chair looked ready. The calculations appeared to be correct. His thinking was tight and felt right. This could be the one that worked!

  He grinned and started to pick up his tools. His daddy had always taught him to take care of his tools, above everything else. A man can be judged by how clean and well-ordered his workbench looks, son, he had often said. It was a good habit to have. Jeb carefully put the various tools in their places and swept up around the chair with an old broom.

He sighed and dropped in the chair. It was an old friend, cradling him in worn and familiar comfort. He yawned and stretched. It won’t hurt to rest for a spell before heading up to bed. He put his head back on the NASA tea towel and smiled, his heavy eyelids sliding closed on their own.





  Jeb stepped out into the soft night and tilted his head back to soak in the sight of his old friends. The stars spread across the sky like scattered chips of diamonds on black, rich velvet. He knew them all. He had spent his years as a child, then a young man, studying the sky, memorizing the names, the constellations, the clusters.

The waxing moon was held, stuck fast in the clutching branches of the old sycamore tree that stood sentinel in the back yard. The moon was bright and nearly full, the pockmarked face clear and distinct. He knew her well, too. All the mountains and seas, the craters and the shadows; he knew them as well as the streets of his town. He smiled at the moon and wished again that he could visit, just once, before he left this mortal coil. The smile grew wider and he surprised himself with a sudden laugh. Why not?

  He crouched, feet shifting slightly to get a firm base in the sandy soil, and he looked intently at his target. He drew a deep breath and expelled it noisily. Pointed his arms at the moon like Superman and with a shout, leaped into the night. He sprung up and up, the feel of the air whistling past his face cool and caressing on his skin. The moon grew large, expanding to fill the night sky. He laughed in the sheer joy of the moment and swooped towards his old love.

    He swept over the dusty rough surface of the moon, his heart thrilling to the sight of the craggy mountains, deep craters, and dust-filled seas. There! The Mare Tranquillitatis! The Sea of Tranquillity, site of the first lunar landing. July, 1969, the crew of Apollo 11 touched down on that now most famous of areas on the surface of Earth’s nearest neighbor. He spotted the Double Crater and the Little West Crater ahead and slowed down to hover above the field of dust and rocks. The tracks of the lunar rover were still visible and he followed them to the smoked remains of the lunar lander base unit, sitting spider-like and alone. He stepped onto the ground, marveling at the feel of the surface under his feet. His sneakers, dirty-white and torn out on one side, sunk deeply into the dust beside the flat oversized footprints left by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Jeb knelt and sifted the fine grit through his fingers, giggling at the feel of the silky dirt sliding slowly between his bare fingers to float slowly back to the surface. He stood and turned a complete circle, the mountains in the distance sharp as a knife against the darkness of space. He was surprised at how clear the mountains seemed, how focused, but the moment he thought about it he had the answer. There was no air on the moon’s surface to distort the view. The first flitting tendrils of panic stroked the edges of his mind, but he shrugged them off. If he was going to die of lack of oxygen, or the near absolute zero temperatures, or the total lack of pressure—which should have caused his blood to boil away just before it froze solid while his body exploded…in seconds—he should have already done so. He threw back his head and laughed out loud but was stunned into silence. The Earth hung over his head, peeking over the tall mountain tops, huge and bright, blue and browns and greens, rippling with white clouds. It was so beautiful his eyes teared up for a second and a lump formed in his throat. He had to close his eyes for a second. He was afraid that when he opened his eyes the vision would be gone, replaced by his bedroom ceiling, but the sight was just too overwhelming to endure. He smiled hard enough to hurt, made a wish, and opened his eyes.

  The Earth still floated on its bed of black, star covered space, achingly lovely. He laughed and laughed, falling to his knees in the dust, arms out-spread and head back.

  He wandered around the landing site, examining the abandoned pieces of equipment. He ran his hand over the lander’s strut-like legs and sat on the edge of the base unit, feet dangling. He stroked the American flag, wrinkled as though the non-existent wind was gently furling the nylon material. The astronauts couldn’t get the upper support piece to deploy correctly and fully so the flag was planted with a less than perfect appearance. Jeb loved it anyway. 

  He found a rock to sit on where he could see the whole of the site with the Earth behind it all. He sighed…if only he could take a photo! He sat and smiled, perfectly at peace in mind and soul.

 

    The bright light through his closed eyes brought him awake. He squinted and raised a hand to block out the harsh glare. Dang, time to go to work already? He slowly started to absorb his surroundings, dropping bits and pieces like a mental jigsaw puzzle into place until he had a picture.

  The moon was gone…such a vivid dream! And he was sad beyond reason at its leaving. So wonderful…but he wasn’t in bed. Oh. Blast! He had fallen asleep in the old recliner in the garage, and not for the first time.

    But this bright light…

    He focused his eyes and stared through his fingers at the glare. The light wasn’t from the overhead florescent fixtures. They were never this bright, and besides, the light came from closer to the floor. A car outside with its high beams on? Maybe…

  There were variances in the light, shadows vaguely seen, perhaps figures silhouetted against the actinic flare, their edges burned to feathers and lacework in the light. He wasn’t sure until one of them moved slightly. There were two people standing inside his garage in front of a bright light. What in the Sam Hill was going on?

    The light suddenly dimmed to a much softer level, still bright but Jeb was able to look without fearing that his eyes would melt from the intensity. The figures were still back-lit and indistinct, but they had lost the fuzzy edges.

    They stood very still, stiffly, like statues or cardboard cut-outs. The figures were tall, lean, and well proportioned with broad shoulders and narrow waists. He couldn’t make out their faces, the details were in shadows, but their heads were wreathed with soft curls of hair that flowed softly around the face to cascade on their shoulders in a smooth curve. Jeb couldn’t be sure, but the hair looked as pale and yellow as corn silk in the light. They were dressed in something he could only label as jumpsuits, white and clean looking.  They said nothing.

    Jumpin’ Jesophat! He struggled to his feet and stood in front of the chair, fists balled at his side. His insides fluttered and he felt a cold chill race up and down his spine. His mouth was dry and he was sure that if he tried to speak, all that he would produce would be cotton balls or tiny puffs of dust. He cleared his throat and forced a swallow to wet his vocal cords.

“This here is private property, gentlemen, Ah must, ahhh…ask y'all to leave.” He was shocked to hear that his voice sounded rather even and perhaps calm despite the fact that his knees were threatening to give up and collapse and goose bumps had started to go into full production, plus major overtime, on his arms.

  “We mean you no harm, Jeb.” The voice was smooth as honey and rich as milk chocolate, a deep tenor. Jeb couldn’t tell which one of the figures had spoken. “But we bear a message for you.”

    Jeb edged around the old chair, placing it between him and the mysterious figures. He fumbled behind him until his fingers found the light switch for the work bench lights. He flipped them on, a set of high intensity spots mounted over the work space, and the men were no longer back lit and featureless.

    It was a surprise when he got a good look at the revealed faces. He had assumed that they were males from the sound of their voices and the width of their shoulders, but a clear look at the smooth features and soft planes of their hairless faces gave him a moment of doubt. Were they men or rather butch-looking women? He was having a curiously difficult time determining.

    They were very similar, like twin peas in a pod, but not quite identical in appearance. Their eyes were wide set and calm looking, one had blue eyes, the other a smoky hazel in color. They had wide mouths and perfect teeth, narrow ruby lips and strong, straight noses. But the jaw line and the cheekbones were soft and flowing, heart shaped, not the lantern jaw and chiseled facets he expected from the sound of the voice or width of the shoulders.

    They were dressed in loose enough fitting jumpsuit-type clothing that he couldn’t get any visual clues from their body shapes as to their gender. It was confusing, but he mentally shrugged and added it to the growing list of things he would have to explore later. Other questions struggled to the fore of his mind. Such as why these folks were in his garage.

The figures didn’t react to the light other than to nod at Jeb and smile. One of them slowly raised a hand holding a silver tube-shaped device, but was careful to not point it near Jeb. He, she…it, spoke. The mouth moved but the sounds of the voice came from the silver device. Jeb noted that the movement of the speaker’s mouth didn’t match with the words issuing from the gadget. It was like watching a sub-titled Japanese movie.

    “Jeb. Be calm and know peace. We mean you no harm.”

    “Y’all said that before. What Ah want to know is what y’all are doin’ here.” He paused for a second, then added, “And who are y’all? Y’all seem to know who Ah am.”

    The two looked at each other and one nodded to the other in some signal of consent that Jeb didn’t understand. That one turned his, her glance back to Jeb and tilted his, her head. “There is much you need to know to understand fully. We can not tell you everything. But we can perhaps explain enough that you will be willing to listen to our message.”

    Jeb leaned back against the workbench and his hand searched behind him for a weapon of some sort, a hammer, a screwdriver, or a submachine gun. But his habit of cleaning up betrayed him this time. The bench was empty. Maybe he could stall until someone noticed the strange light in the garage…no, probably not. His neighbors didn’t live that close and besides, they were probably used to the lights being on in here at all hours of the night. He sighed softly. He was on his own, for the time being, at least.

  “Okay…so, who are y’all? Let’s start with that.”

  “We have been called many things through your world’s history. Gods, demons, fairies, elves, spirits, leprechauns, angels, ghosts…”

  “Aliens.” Chimed in the other, his, her voice coming through the gizmo with the same timbre and sound as the first figure.

    Jeb shook his head and frowned. “That doesn’t tell me who y’all are, just what y’all have been mistaken for.” He snorted in a brief laugh. “Ah don’t aim to be the brunt of any anal probes, neither!”

  “That’s not our task” responded one of the figures.

    “That’s good t’hear.” Jeb studied the figures for moment. “Ah’d lean towards angels, mahself, based on appearances.”

    “Don’t allow our current appearance to misguide you, Jeb. We can adapt and change our looks to fit when we need to blend in.” The figure smiled and made a slight waving motion with one perfectly groomed hand.  “The truth is, we are guardians. We are here to guard your planet.”

    Jeb squinted in thought and felt a small flower of hope blossom in his chest . “So y’all are here to help me with this invention, right? ‘Cause it will help us leave this planet and explore the universe, y’all want to help us along.” He realized he was buying into this all rather quickly. He was willing to believe that these hermaphroditic folks were angels, sans wings, here to help him finish wiring up the induction panel in his chair…it was like winning the lottery. But he hadn’t bought a ticket. He suddenly had a doubt erupt into being. Believe nothin’ y’all hear, and only half of what y’all see, his daddy always said. Maybe he shouldn’t believe even half.

    Their next words confirmed his doubt.

    “No, Jeb. We are not here to protect the planet you live on, but the rest of the Galaxy.” He, she, paused to see if this tidbit would register. He, she, nodded, obviously believing that Jeb had assimilated that little gem. “The world you live on is a proscribed world, Jeb. The inhabitants are far too violent, too savage, to be allowed out in the greater universe. The damage that you could cause, the disruption, is fearful to the civilized peoples and we have been forced to restrict your world to limit your contact with the rest of the galaxy.”

    “And to keep you firmly on your world and out of space” chimed in the other.

    Jeb shook his head in confusion. Seeing his reaction, the first “angel” spoke again in a soft sigh. “Yours is a young race, Jeb. Children. Like all children you will get into mischief and danger if allowed to roam.”

    “Dangerous children who don’t know how to act…” added the other, frowning slightly. They exchanged looks and the rather more dour figure shrugged and looked away.

    “Jeb, we are here to watch over you. Our people were here throughout your history, as the gods of your myths, spirits, aliens… a subtle presence always. We have tried to gently shape your cultures to a more peaceful path. We occasionally drop hints for things that you could use, like electricity and the civil rights movement.  But our job is not to shape your development as much as assuring that you don’t develop items you shouldn’t have yet.

  “The atomic bomb was a flat-out mistake and heads rolled for that one, you can bet.” stated the obviously negative member of the pair.

    The first looked disgruntled for a second then nodded in agreement. “Your race was not ready for atomic power. It was allowed only to help solve your upcoming power shortage. Who knew you’d turn it into a weapon so fast?” He, she waved a hand in a cast-off gesture. “The task we have, however, is to see that you not leave this planet until you are ready for polite society.” He, she, pointed a graceful finger at the chair, Jeb’s ATDV and intoned in a formal, sepulchral tone, “We have come to demand that you to discontinue your research in this area.”

    Jeb’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? Wah, when, Ah guess Ah’m getting’ close to sumthin’ here, then, right?” He grinned slyly. “Y’all wouldn’t be tryin’ to stop me iffen Ah wasn’t close to a breakthrough!”

    The two “angels” sagged a little and looked at each other in despair. They spoke for a moment, but the translator must have been switched off because nothing Jeb heard made the slightest sense. It sounded like the liquid trill of a brook splashing over rocks. If that was their language, it was beautiful to listen to. They finished their discussion, apparently, and turned to Jeb once more. “Jeb, you must not pursue this line of research. That is very important for you to understand. End it, now. Find something else to do with your time, please.”

    “Or y’all will stop me? Are y’all threatenin’ me?” Jeb felt a thrill of fear but forced it down. “Iffen y’all are angels, y’all won’t harm me.”

    “Hey! We aren’t angels, pal—that’s just the tag you hung on us. We will stop you, if you don’t back off.” Jeb was beginning to see that the angel on the  right wasn’t all that pleasant. So he looked at the one on the left.

    “Y’all goin’ to stop me, then?” He leaned forward, hands on his hips, in an aggressive stance. It was all for show, but he thought it was worth the effort. If the angels showed the slightest sign of doing him any hurt, he was planning to back off faster than a dawg cornering a polecat.

    The nice angel sighed softly and patted the air with a hand. “Jeb, we have had to intervene in affairs before—remember Soyuz 1, the parachute didn’t deploy? Or Soyuz 11? The three cosmonauts died from decompression due to a faulty seal ring? Or Apollo 1, the horrible fire on the launch pad? Apollo 13? Challenger? Columbia? Any of these ring a bell? And there have been dozens of other little interventions.” He, she, frowned and shook his, her head. “We tried to warn the space agencies, but they wouldn’t listen. We really try to just make it so difficult that they give up, but sometimes, with the fragile ships and weak technology, accidents happen. We don’t mean to kill, abhor it actually. ” He, she, shrugged again, “But did you notice that all the space programs have dialed back in the last twenty years, Jeb? They got the message. Stay on the ground.”

  “Except for the Chinese, but they don’t listen to anyone, but they will, believe me. We have ways…” The nasty angel’s grin was almost feral in intensity. Jeb was starting to really dislike him, her.

  The first one continued, “We don’t want to threaten you, or anyone, but we don’t want you leaving this world. And we can take steps to make you listen as well, but we don’t want to go that route.” He, she, gestured at the chair, Jeb’s dream, and said, softly and with a hint of compassion, “Don’t push this. We can not allow you to leave this planet and this technology is too dangerous for you to be playing with at your stage of development. Wandering through time and space isn’t anything we can permit you to do yet.”

  Jeb perked up. He cocked his head and stared at the angel. He could feel the excitement bubbling up inside of him like an overheated  saucepan of gumbo. He was right! He didn’t dare to hope, but the thought was never far from his mind. He didn’t stress it at the meetings he had with the science folks because he felt it would scare them off, like that didn’t happen anyway, but he secretly had figured it was a correct theory. The dream chair could function in both space and time, just like dreams! He smiled at the angel. “Wah, thank ya’ kindly, sir. Ah wasn’t sure that mah chair would be able to span time as well as space, but y’all just confirmed that fer me. Thank y’all!”

  “Oh, good one!” the second angel glowered at the first and scowled as darkly as the beautifully light countenance could manage. “Did he need to know that?”

    The first angel looked abashed. So much so, that Jeb raised a hand and hurriedly said, “Hold on there, fellers! Ah pretty much figured that much mahself. It was just reassurin’ to hear it confirmed.” 

    “Fine. Now you can forget you heard that” snarled the mean angel. He, she, was really starting to appear to be more demon than angel in Jeb’s book. It wouldn’t surprise him at all if he, she, sprouted horns like a goat and turned all red.

    “Just stop working on it, Jeb, please. Don’t make us come down here again. It won’t be very friendly the second time around.”

    “Wait a dag-gummed minute…” Jeb rubbed his chin with one hand as he stared at the white-clad guardians. “Y’all didn’t come down here before tonight. And tonight Ah had the most perfect dream of bein’ on the moon…” he paused in thought. “’Cause that wasn’t a dream! Ah did get it to work! Ah just didn’t use the disconnect! Good thing, too, ‘cause Ah didn’t have a pressure suit on.” He smiled widely. “Hah! Ah did it! It works!”

  “Wonderful for you, Jeb” snarled the nasty angel, “So, which do you prefer? Heart attack or car crash? Pick one!”

    “Jeb! Please! Back away from this.” The nice angel reached out as if to touch him, but Jeb eased back slightly to avoid the contact. The Lazyboy was in the way and the angels dropped his, her hand, defeated.

    “Can I kill him now?” queried the other.

    “No!” He, she, turned pleading eyes on Jeb. “I don’t want to have to do that. You have been redeemed, your vision is correct; can’t you just quit now and do something else? Find a cure for cancer, or a better gasoline substitute, or anything but a way to leave the planet…”

  Jeb realized his head was spinning. Too much, too fast, he was having trouble dealing with it all in the size chunk he’d been given to consider. He needed some time to think. Maybe he could stall…

    “Ah guess Ah need to think on this some. It’s tough to just dump your dreams in the can, ya’know?”

    “You will be happier…”

    “And alive.”

    “…if you do, Jeb. Just let it go. The world isn’t ready for this yet and we can not allow anyone off the planet. No one. Sorry. Let it go. Destroy the chair.”

    The light suddenly intensified behind them causing Jeb to squint and look away. “We’ll be watching you, Jeb. Remember that.” The light flared and died. When the dancing afterimages faded from Jeb’s retinas, he realized he was again alone in the garage. The angels, or whatever, had gone. Back to their guard post to confine humanity in this planet-sized cell and squash any attempt to escape.

    Jeb flopped in the old Lazyboy and wiped his brow. He felt like crying, he felt like shouting in triumph, he felt like cowering, all at the same time. He was scared, elated, confused, and so excited he thought he would split. 

The chair had worked, at least in part! He had been on the surface of the moon, or part of him had been there. More than a dream, less than a reality, he was definitely on to something here. But he had a puzzle. The chair wasn’t, hadn’t been, turned on.

    Jeb got up and checked the chair. The switch was mounted low on the frame and he might have bumped it when he swept the floor. No, the illuminated switch was off, the light dark. He picked up the power cord. Although the chair had batteries and worked independently of a power source, he always used the household current to save the life of the battery cells. The cord wasn’t plugged in. The chair was dead. The chair wasn’t working.

  He rocked back on his heels and smiled widely. The small candle flame of hope exploded like a solar flare. Let the guardians take his chair and try to block his research—it was too late. He didn’t need the chair. He could travel now without the technology. It wasn’t the device, but the strength of his mind and his will that did the work. And anyone could be trained to do it! It was a natural talent that mankind possessed and the outside galaxy couldn’t do squat to stop it from happening! He wanted to shout at the heavens, bellow his victory. And he could travel in time as well…he could skip back a few years and start teaching everyone to do what he was doing! There was no technology to be interfered with, no device to be compromised, to slow up the process of learning to escape the bonds of this world.



    Mankind was growing up, like it or not. Just try to keep the cell door locked now!