The Sixth

                                                                                         

The Sixth

                                                                                     

by P.S.

                                                           

         Yeah, sure, Clemens will be remembered as the original 'place porter', but Merezmo will always be 'Father Time'.

Ya see, the first five had to work it all out with naked juice. I hated the feel of the raw juice crawling

over your entire body. Maybe that's why I'm still here and they're not, the first five, I mean. They got to loving the feel,

I mean. The naked juice, as they called it. But it effected your mind after awhile and, well, I guess, they

just decided to take it to the next level and go somewhere - beyond, out there, I mean. I remember the look in Jay's

eyes the last time he appeared in front of me just before he disappeared forever. It was wild, ya know, like some

beatnik, all wide eyed and leering smile, not a word to me, just poof and "..bye Jay, I love ya buddy!". I didn't even

get to say that, I wish I had. Ya see, I'm number six and I'm still here. Probably, because I always hated the feel of

the naked juice, ya know. I mean, I'm credited with coming up with a way to time port without the creepy crawling of

electricity going over your body just as you jumped through. I developed the 'grid'.

         We were all childhood friends, growing up along Van Nuys Blvd. in California that started at M.I.T. together, the six of us, I mean,

all working in the same field of theory, ya see. Will Clemens, Arnie Deveroe, Paxton(that's all we called him), Joe Jennings, Jay Merezmo

and myself, Maxwell Bleumon. I remember Will Clemsen's first jump.I came into his efficency down on Van Nuys Boulevard and there he was,

standing with these two huge cables in each hand, waiting for me, ya see. I remember the look on his face as I stepped into the little

corner of his dining room that he jokingly referred to as 'the lab', then he tells me "...we're about to make history!". Then nothing,

the cables thudding to the floor, gone, I mean. I'm looking around for about ten minutes, at a loss as to what to do next,

suddenly the phone on the counter rings and its Will - from France! He's all excited, babbling and not making

any sense as this stream of theory is pouring out of the phone from somewhere in France and I'm standing there

dumbfonded wondering how in the hell is he going get home? Well, ya see, we started working on everything and our

classes at M.I.T. went to hell (who needs a degree when your making history in your own lifetime), then Arnie and Paxton

discover that if a reverse current is set up on the other side, you can come right back a minute later. This starts a

flurry of events that is just a blurr in my memory, with guys jumping in and out of the apartment and everything

starting to take off. Its like we stopped eating and the next few weeks became one long day, ya know. Its amazing what

the body will endure when the mind becomes feverishly latched to an idea and won't let go. They set up return gates

in different places and were hopping around the world like it was nothing. That's when Jay noticed what it was doing to

the mind, the juice, I mean. Jennings started getting weird on us, hopping in and out of the classrooms at M.I.T. and

word got out that something was going on in California. Jennings had a gate in his pad and had discovered how to

remote portal, it was creepy, ya know. We tried to keep it as quiet as possible, but Joe was slipping mentally and

we knew it, ya see. Jay said it was the raw juice that was frying the brain cells, not severely at first, but

over time and with enough jumps the naked juice started to skewer your preception of everything, ya know? Jay and I were the

first to 'double jump'. Jay starts explaining the theory to me at the lab, then the next thing I know, he takes my hand and poof,

there we go. The evolution of the theory was growing at an alarming rate as we uncovered diffferent facets of it

everyday.

         Then Will didn't come back. Everybody got scared, ya see, except Jennings, but he was pretty much fried by

now, becoming the 'Wizard of Van Nuys' in his own mind, ya know? Then Arnie and Paxton disappeared and we discovered

an aspect of placement that was a naturally occuring phenomenon, I mean, you wouldn't wind up in a wall or a bridge,

because of the contrary electromagnetic fields between active organic matter and inert matter, ya see, but that

didn't mean you wouldn't wind up in front of a speeding bus, so to speak, as they had discovered. We heard the

sad news about Arnie and Pax and for the first time everything came to a crashing halt. At the viewing, I actually had

my first beer in a month. I remember sitting down with the third one, when I broke down, crying uncontrollably. Paxton

had helped me get through my first year at M.I.T., ya see, I don't know what I'd have done without Pax that year.

         Jay started working on the 'whys' of what happened to Will almost immediately and that's how he discovered 'time

portalling', it was no longer just 'place porting'. Ya see, the trick now was controlling it, which is why Merezmo will always be 'Father Time'.

He found out how to get exactly where you wanted to go through a backward time stream and back again, instantaneously. I was

there the day he proved his theory. He told me to think back to that day when Nancy dumped me to go back to Georgia.

Ya see, its the day I will always call 'After The Great Conflagration'. I took the Frye boots she had given me, that I

cherished so much, and very ceremoniuosly folding them, had laid them on the top of the trash, thus symbolically ending

the relationship forever. Merezmo, being the close freind that he was, knew the deep pain of that day and how I

carried it around with me all these years. "Think back, Max, to that day...", I did, then he flickered, for an

instant, as he stood there in front of me and my mouth dropped open. I was floored by the memory of Jay appearing in

my apartment that day - a memory that hadn't been there before. I remember hearing his voice and turning to look over

my shoulder and there he was, telling me to forget her, she wasn't worth my time and that Denise was just around the

corner anyway. Then he was gone from memory. He hadn't touched me, or taken or brought anything material into the space,

just spoken and then he was gone and I remembered it. Jay stood in front of me smiling, a huge crease ran across that bearded mug of his,

like some gaping ape, ya know? He'd done it, ya see, and he understood that you don't bring anything into the time space

and you don't take anything out of that space, unless of course, you want to screw everything up in the future, the Butterfly Effect, ya see.

Then Joe Jennings disappeared. Jay and I never did figure out where he wound up. We just chalked it up to too much juice, too

fast and made a note for future generations, after all we were the forefathers of this whole crazy thing and somebody

had to lay down the guidelines. I started working on a way to eliminate the formation of raw juice to open the port. Before I

could come up with the completed workings of it and my invention of the 'grid', Jay disappeared. But not for good, ya

see, he had to say goodbye.

         It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon in the park. I was taking a break from the brainstorming I had been doing

all week up at 'the lab', when suddenly sitting next to me on the bench is Jennings. Ya see, he's got this crazy glint

in his eye and I know immediately that he's gone upstairs, totally, ya know, but there's love there too, in the look,

ya see, and I realize its a 'goodbye' from the 'Wizard of Van Nuys', so I nod and he nods back and poof! Then

instantaniously there's Jay and his wild eyes tell me he's on to something. I realize he's found the Wizard's trail

and is chasing him down. His hair's all dishevelled and his demeanor is disturbing and all I can think to say at the

moment is "..go get'em Jay!", then he too is gone. Ya see, I've not seen hide nor hair of the five since then and I

only know where two of them wound up, then again, I wonder if Arnie and Pax didn't really die, but are traveling around

with the others somewhere out there, ya know? Since then, I've perfected the 'grid' and have done some testing of my

own. You should have seen the look on young Tom Cruise's pimply face when I appeared at the mall that day in front of

his giggling pack of girlfriends to tell him just how much his body of work meant to me, especially 'A Few Good Men'

and 'The Last Samurai'. He just looked at me strange as if I were just another local crazy, then poof, ya know?!


                                       

END