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The overhead fluorescents dimmed in the Temporal University Physics Lab as my
good friend, V. Hector Sneakpeeper, powered up his Linear Oscillatory Viewing
Etiological Recreater. “Come on, LOVER,” he shouted, slamming at the control panel
as the screen alternately blanked and flickered. “Show it to me, LOVER! Give me the
picture!”
Outlined against the glow of the giant video display, V. Hector appeared blade-thin,
with features like a starving condor. Despite such obviously artistic scholarly
qualities, he nevertheless plodded along as a research assistant in the dismal slough
of Physics. The English Department had washed him out for submitting poetry
corrupted with rhyme and meter.
“More power!” yelled V. Hector, stabbing at a keyboard imbedded in the morass of
meandering wires. Racks of humming black boxes seemed to close in around me
under the fading light.
“Look, Hector, all I need is a quick peek at Moses on the Mount,” I said, pulling at
my collar. “Those picky editors at the Journal of Holistic Neologisms rejected my
‘Divine Revelations’ paper because I didn’t actually witness the Word being given.
And they had the gall to phone my professor about it on a Sunday morning. How’s
that for respecting the day? If I’d taken that call, they woulda heard a sermon to
singe their earlobes, Sunday or not. ‘Swearing by all that’s holy’ ain’t just an
expression, y’know.”
“Let’s have it, LOVER!” continued V. Hector, ignoring my increasingly passionate
invective. “Now, LOVER, NOW!”
Much more of this, I thought, and Dear Professor B. can do his own dirty work. Just
plant the ideas, he said, and they’ll do the rest. OK, Prof, we’ll just see if everything
sticks in V. Hector’s mind.
The shadow play on the screen steadied, revealing the image of an elderly Semite,
bearded and be-robed (albeit none too cleanly), sweating laboriously up a steep
mountain trail. He slipped on the rocky footing, bent to wipe his skinned knee with
the wadded end of his beard, and began a silent tirade.
“Got him!” trumpeted V. Hector, doing a clumsy buck-and-wing.
“But, blast it, where’s the sound? LOVER, can’t you get it right the first time?”
“Never mind,” I said. “Can we skip forward and catch him on the peak when he first
got the Word? I couldn’t care less if he breaks a leg getting there.”
“Easily done,” said V. Hector, lapsing into lecture mode. “Now that we’ve tapped
the right frequencies and reinforcement levels, all we need is minor adjustments in
the overtone residuals. The history of all time has been recorded in the undying
vibrations of light and sound waves, you know, and—”
“Yeah, yeah, I do know. Could we get on with it?”
V. Hector pounded his keyboard. Blue-green sparks leaped between black boxes, like
so many acrobatic tree snakes.
The image rolled, then stabilized. The patriarch now stood atop a truck-sized red
granite boulder, one of many tumbled along a broad wind-blasted ridge. His hair
streamed behind his upthrust head and his beard lashed to and fro as he gestured
and chanted skyward, arms pumping in a rhythmic ecstasy of supplication. A royal
purple glow began to pulse in time with his silent litany.
Suddenly a tall sinuous man in a black ski mask came scrambling around one of the
nearer boulders, slithering between the stone barriers like he had the hips of a
snake. (Snake!) As he zigzagged toward our apparent vantage point, he kept a multi-
lensed device aimed at us. A cable spiraled ominously to a shoulder pack labeled
“Burst Power.”
“LOVER” suddenly locked onto the sonic frequency at full volume.
I barely caught the tail end of the Patriarch’s chanting—words indistinct but oddly
familiar—before Mr. Ski Mask let loose with both lungs.
“YOU LOUSY SNOOPS! AIN’T YOU GOT THE GOOD SENSE TO KNOW YOU’RE MESSING
WITH NUMBER ONE! YOU GOT NO PRIORITY! AND NO PICTURES UNLESS THEY’RE THE
RIGHT PICTURES! TAKE THAT, YOU LOUSY FINKS!!”
I had a final vision of the patriarch turning toward us with a look of horrified disgust
on his face, when the purple glow was drowned under a blast of light brighter than a
fireworks finale, leaving me blinking and sightless.
“What the . . .?” I finally managed, rubbing my eyes until I could squint myself back
into visual coherence. When I agreed on this mission for my dear professor, I hadn’t
bargained for a side trip to the optometry trauma center.
“Sun-gun,” said V.H., also pawing at his eyes. “Sabotaging little rat flashed it right
up LOVER’s detector channel. Scrambled every frequency for a millennium in both
directions.”
“Second question. Who in blazes was that?”
“Er . . . uh . . . ah . . . Dunno,” said V. Hector, not meeting my gaze, and perhaps
putting a little more effort into caressing his smoking keyboard than might have
been necessary . “Rats! It’s gonna take me a year to recalibrate.” He picked up a
screwdriver, wiped away the tears, and began dismantling the one Gray Box. I might
as well have been in Reykjavik.
“Hector . . .”
“You still here? Listen, I don’t want to say any more, but that little freak was
obviously a corporeal presence. Scoot over to Engineering. They specialize in all
kinds of gross solid state shenanigans, like time travel in the flesh.”
A loud ZAP! and a delicate curl of smoke signaled that the gesturing screwdriver and
the innards of the Gray Box were not particularly compatible.
I scooted.
Frank C. Gunderloy © 2009
good friend, V. Hector Sneakpeeper, powered up his Linear Oscillatory Viewing
Etiological Recreater. “Come on, LOVER,” he shouted, slamming at the control panel
as the screen alternately blanked and flickered. “Show it to me, LOVER! Give me the
picture!”
Outlined against the glow of the giant video display, V. Hector appeared blade-thin,
with features like a starving condor. Despite such obviously artistic scholarly
qualities, he nevertheless plodded along as a research assistant in the dismal slough
of Physics. The English Department had washed him out for submitting poetry
corrupted with rhyme and meter.
“More power!” yelled V. Hector, stabbing at a keyboard imbedded in the morass of
meandering wires. Racks of humming black boxes seemed to close in around me
under the fading light.
“Look, Hector, all I need is a quick peek at Moses on the Mount,” I said, pulling at
my collar. “Those picky editors at the Journal of Holistic Neologisms rejected my
‘Divine Revelations’ paper because I didn’t actually witness the Word being given.
And they had the gall to phone my professor about it on a Sunday morning. How’s
that for respecting the day? If I’d taken that call, they woulda heard a sermon to
singe their earlobes, Sunday or not. ‘Swearing by all that’s holy’ ain’t just an
expression, y’know.”
“Let’s have it, LOVER!” continued V. Hector, ignoring my increasingly passionate
invective. “Now, LOVER, NOW!”
Much more of this, I thought, and Dear Professor B. can do his own dirty work. Just
plant the ideas, he said, and they’ll do the rest. OK, Prof, we’ll just see if everything
sticks in V. Hector’s mind.
The shadow play on the screen steadied, revealing the image of an elderly Semite,
bearded and be-robed (albeit none too cleanly), sweating laboriously up a steep
mountain trail. He slipped on the rocky footing, bent to wipe his skinned knee with
the wadded end of his beard, and began a silent tirade.
“Got him!” trumpeted V. Hector, doing a clumsy buck-and-wing.
“But, blast it, where’s the sound? LOVER, can’t you get it right the first time?”
“Never mind,” I said. “Can we skip forward and catch him on the peak when he first
got the Word? I couldn’t care less if he breaks a leg getting there.”
“Easily done,” said V. Hector, lapsing into lecture mode. “Now that we’ve tapped
the right frequencies and reinforcement levels, all we need is minor adjustments in
the overtone residuals. The history of all time has been recorded in the undying
vibrations of light and sound waves, you know, and—”
“Yeah, yeah, I do know. Could we get on with it?”
V. Hector pounded his keyboard. Blue-green sparks leaped between black boxes, like
so many acrobatic tree snakes.
The image rolled, then stabilized. The patriarch now stood atop a truck-sized red
granite boulder, one of many tumbled along a broad wind-blasted ridge. His hair
streamed behind his upthrust head and his beard lashed to and fro as he gestured
and chanted skyward, arms pumping in a rhythmic ecstasy of supplication. A royal
purple glow began to pulse in time with his silent litany.
Suddenly a tall sinuous man in a black ski mask came scrambling around one of the
nearer boulders, slithering between the stone barriers like he had the hips of a
snake. (Snake!) As he zigzagged toward our apparent vantage point, he kept a multi-
lensed device aimed at us. A cable spiraled ominously to a shoulder pack labeled
“Burst Power.”
“LOVER” suddenly locked onto the sonic frequency at full volume.
I barely caught the tail end of the Patriarch’s chanting—words indistinct but oddly
familiar—before Mr. Ski Mask let loose with both lungs.
“YOU LOUSY SNOOPS! AIN’T YOU GOT THE GOOD SENSE TO KNOW YOU’RE MESSING
WITH NUMBER ONE! YOU GOT NO PRIORITY! AND NO PICTURES UNLESS THEY’RE THE
RIGHT PICTURES! TAKE THAT, YOU LOUSY FINKS!!”
I had a final vision of the patriarch turning toward us with a look of horrified disgust
on his face, when the purple glow was drowned under a blast of light brighter than a
fireworks finale, leaving me blinking and sightless.
“What the . . .?” I finally managed, rubbing my eyes until I could squint myself back
into visual coherence. When I agreed on this mission for my dear professor, I hadn’t
bargained for a side trip to the optometry trauma center.
“Sun-gun,” said V.H., also pawing at his eyes. “Sabotaging little rat flashed it right
up LOVER’s detector channel. Scrambled every frequency for a millennium in both
directions.”
“Second question. Who in blazes was that?”
“Er . . . uh . . . ah . . . Dunno,” said V. Hector, not meeting my gaze, and perhaps
putting a little more effort into caressing his smoking keyboard than might have
been necessary . “Rats! It’s gonna take me a year to recalibrate.” He picked up a
screwdriver, wiped away the tears, and began dismantling the one Gray Box. I might
as well have been in Reykjavik.
“Hector . . .”
“You still here? Listen, I don’t want to say any more, but that little freak was
obviously a corporeal presence. Scoot over to Engineering. They specialize in all
kinds of gross solid state shenanigans, like time travel in the flesh.”
A loud ZAP! and a delicate curl of smoke signaled that the gesturing screwdriver and
the innards of the Gray Box were not particularly compatible.
I scooted.
Frank C. Gunderloy © 2009
Excerpt From
"Moses Disposes"
by Frank C. Gunderloy
"Moses Disposes"
by Frank C. Gunderloy
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