Posts filed under ‘READER’S OPPORTUNITIES’
ELMO’S SOJOURN: CHAPTER 2, ELMO’S ADVENTURE BEGINS
ELMO’S SOJOURN
CHAPTER 2
ELMO’S ADVENTURE BEGINS
As Mildred returned her thoughts to the present, she wondered if the lights dimming had anything to do with Elmo’s shouting. What she didn’t know was that the lights had also dimmed in most of that region of New York and most of eastern Canada. The electrical company had never experienced a power drain like this before and was struggling to get things under control.
Now, as she opened the basement door, Mildred wondered if perhaps all those years Elmo worked in the basement unsupervised was really a good idea. She peered down the stairs He began jumping like a little boy, not the seventy-five-year-old man that he was. “I don’t have a problem. I did it! I did it!” he shouted over and over.
“I completed my first experiment,” Elmo answered and pointed to the Plexiglas chamber. Through the mist Mildred began to detect a shape. At first she thought it was a large fire hydrant but then it began to move. The fire hydrant was mottled red and green with skinny arms ending in suction-cupped fingers. Its tiny legs also ended in suction cups. The creature’s mouth resembled a funnel, which constantly opened and closed. It was breathing.
The most peculiar aspect of this creature was its eye. It had only one and it blinked constantly. As Elmo and Mildred talked, the eye followed their conversation, traveling from one to the other, as the eye physically moved around the perimeter of its head. Mildred watched as the eye moved from one side of the thing’s head to the other. She giggled as she imagined a stadium full of these creatures following a tennis match but soon got control of herself. Actually, the single eye wandering all over the alien’s head was starting to give her the creeps.
“You can’t keep it,” she said.
Elmo responded, “I don’t want to keep it. I want to go back with it.”
“You’re kidding Elmo, and where did it come from anyway?” asked Mildred.
Elmo explained, “You see my dear, you and I and all living beings in the universe are a series of chemical reactions. The cosmos is one huge chemistry set. I thought that if there was a star, similar in size to our sun, and if there was a planet with a distance similar from that star as the earth is from the sun, that life might exist there. These days, astronomers are always discovering new planets revolving around distant stars. So, I just waited until one was discovered with the right conditions and aimed my time-space machine at that planet and the results are in the chamber. But notice how our friend can barely move his arms or legs. The gravity on his planet must be much less than it is on earth. I need to go back with him and see what it’s like.”
Mildred shook her head. But she knew arguing with Elmo was useless.
“I’ll show you how to run the machine, but first get our camera,” Elmo said.
By the time Mildred found the camera and returned to the basement, Elmo had entered the chamber and had his arm around the visitor. Mildred took a picture, then another for insurance. Then Elmo exited the chamber to demonstrate the workings of the machine to his anxious wife.
“Okay dear, first you turn the machine on with this switch. Next, you turn this rheostat. To get him here, I had to set the rheostat to half maximum. To get us back, you’ll need to turn it to full. Give me about ten minutes and then bring me back.”
“I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” muttered Mildred.
“Don’t worry Mildred, I’ll be back before you’re done cooking dinner.”
Elmo entered the chamber and Mildred followed his instructions. As soon as the rheostat reached max, there was a blinding flash, the chamber filled with a milk-white fog, and Elmo and the creature were gone. Shortly after they disappeared the lights in the basement went out.
Mildred sighed. “Oh Elmo, you may be gone a little longer than you expected,” she muttered and climbed the stairs to fix dinner.
What Mildred didn’t yet know was her town, the entire state of New York, along with most of the northeast, a good portion of the Midwest and a large part of Canada were also without power. Fifty million people were plunged into darkness. Elmo’s experiment had precipitated the largest blackout in history. He was going to be very very late for dinner.
ELMO’S SOJOURN: CHAPTER 1, CELLAR SCIENCE
ELMO’S SOJOURN
CHAPTER 1
CELLAR SCIENCE
“I have a problem! I have a big problem!” Elmo shouted from his cellar laboratory. Mildred shook her head, wiped her hands on her apron and headed for the basement door. After fifty years of marriage, Elmo never ceased to amaze her at the trouble he could get into.
“Could he garden like other men his age? Oh no, he has to do physics experiments,” Mildred muttered as she walked down the cellar stairs.
* * *
They had moved into this rural house in Upstate New York ten years ago, right after Elmo had retired from his job at Los Alamo Laboratory. He was a physicist at the laboratory, part of a think-tank that planned experiments. But Elmo enjoyed the lab work too. He had accumulated a lot of ideas and discarded equipment. Mildred gazed out the window of her country home. Nearby, tall electrical towers obstructed some of the bucolic scenery, but Mildred liked the house just fine. Elmo brought along the junk he had accumulated over the years, mostly discarded apparatus from failed experiments, equipment useless to everyone except Elmo. The items included large magnets and four six-foot-tall Tesla coils, specialized high voltage transformers three feet in diameter and wrapped with miles of thin copper wire. They resembled giant candles, coming to a point with electrical connections at the apex. Elmo transported all this equipment into the basement and fiddled with it for years. He then had a large Plexiglas chamber built, which set them back a bundle. He stood the Tesla coils in each corner, then mounted the magnets in the floor.
The next step in the construction of Elmo’s experiment Mildred found most undesirable. Elmo told Mildred, “I’ll need a great deal of power for my research. Soon I’ll need your help making the electrical connections for the project I’ve been working on.”
A few days ago, a truck had delivered a huge spool of heavy insulated wire, another great expense, and now Mildred was getting a bad feeling. Once it was dark, Elmo emerged from the basement wearing rubber boots and heavy rubber gloves. “Get your coat Mildred, we’re going out.” The spool of wire was in the bed of Elmo’s pickup. They drove to the base of the nearest electrical tower and parked.
“What are you going to do Elmo?” Mildred asked in a voice full of apprehension and a touch of impatience.
“I’m going to climb the tower and connect this wire which you’re going to feed out,” came his reply. Mildred shook her head and wished Elmo would act his age.
After that illegal task was accomplished, Elmo spent most of his time in the basement tinkering with his invention. He called it his Time – Space Chamber, and when Mildred asked just what he was doing Elmo explained, “I’ve always thought that if I could create an electrical field, then move those electrons in a magnetic field to approach the speed of light, I could create a wormhole to a distant time and place. I could aim at the wormhole and transport matter. The secret is the size of the magnetic field. It must be small, not like the giant cyclotrons they construct in the desert.
All Mildred could say was, “If it makes you happy dear.” It kept Elmo out of her hair for years.
ELMO’S SOJOURN IS COMING
ELMO’S SOJOURN IS COMING
In the next series of posts, you will have the opportunity to read my novella, Elmo’s Sojourn.
Recently you were introduced to Elmo in my novella, Elmo’s Invention, in which he was a scientist working at Los Alamos. But his love for science did not stop when his day’s work was done. It never stopped. In that novella Elmo’s invention was a time machine. You can read past posts to see how successful he was.
In Elmo’s Sojourn, Elmo is now retired but his love for science has not ceased. Now his efforts are consumed with travel in space using wormholes. Follow Elmo’s adventures, and misadventures in the upcoming posts offering the novella.
Elmo’s Sojourn has quite a publication history. It was first accepted for publication by Bewildering Stories and was published online in 2006. Next, Mélange Books, publisher of my novel New Moon Rising, accepted the novella in 2010 and published it in a print anthology, Curious Hearts and as an eBook. Also, totally by accident I discovered that the first two chapters of Elmo’s Sojourn were published in China in an English language science fiction publication.
I hope you read the upcoming posts and enjoy the story.
STAY ALIVE: BERLIN 1939 – 1945
STAY ALIVE: BERLIN 1939 – 1945
Stay Alive is authored by Ian Buruma. His reason for writing this book was to describe the conditions in Berlin during World War II The source of some of the information came from his father who was living there at the time.
The events and the lives described in the book deal with circumstances some would choose to forget, especially Germans. But it is important that what is reported in this book is never forgotten.
Life in Berlin was extremely difficult during this time. Not only for Jews, which is well documented, but for all the residents. Stray out of line and the punishment could be brutal no matter what your nationality, up to and including death.
This time in Berlin and the conditions under which the people were forced to live were the result of a small group being given too much power and this group included some who were totally incompetent.
The destruction caused by the war approached Berlin gradually. Even after England declared war on Germany, Berlin was spared being bombed. But that would drastically change especially after America joined the conflict.
This book is worth reading even if you are not a history buff for it brings to light the depth to which society can be led by those who have no right to be leading.
NEW MOON RISING AND THE RING OF FIRE
NEW MOON RISING AND THE RING OF FIRE
The recent rash of earthquakes associated with The Ring of Fire has prompted this article.
My novel, New Moon Rising, published by Mélange Books had as its central theme The Ring of Fire. That novel is now out of print and Mélange Books no longer exists. But I have seen copies of my novel for sale on eBay and recently also saw it offered on Amazon along with three other of my published works.
The Ring of Fire is a highly active geological area of the Earth. And it was the source of my highly active imagination in the creation of my novel.
THE BEAST AWAITS: A NOVEL, SYNOPSIS PART III, THE FINAL PART
Here is the end of the synopsis promised.
THE BEAST AWAITS
By Walt Trizna
Synopsis
The Beast Awaits is a novel composed of three parts: A New Species, Migration and Redemption.
The initial setting for the story is StemDiscovery, a newly started company located in a sprawling complex south of Miami. The horror created there spreads throughout the country and then to the rest of the world
PART III OF SYNOPSIS FOR THE BEAST AWAITS
REDEMPTION
In Canada, the Martins become friends with the Farbers, another family from the U.S. Global warming continues to build and soon the weather in Canada begins to warm. The beasts occupy all warm regions of the world. They have killed tens of millions of people, and their population increases by billions. There seems to be no stopping them.
The mass destruction visited on the planet tilts global warming into a nuclear winter-like condition and the climate cools.
The Martins and Farbers, along with other displaced Americans, decide to return to their home country.
The beasts retreat from the cold and are slowly being concentrated at the equator. Their numbers dwindle but they are never totally eliminated, only contained.
Mankind is given a chance to take back the world. They must build wisely and not repeat mistakes that might again increase global warming because – The Beast Awaits.
This is the end of my synopsis for my novel, The Beast Awaits. Let me know if this sounds like a novel you might be interested in reading. I hope you found the description of my novel interesting.
THE BEAST AWAITS: A NOVEL, SYNOPSIS PART II
Here is Part II of the synopsis.
THE BEAST AWAITS
By Walt Trizna
Synopsis
The Beast Awaits is a novel composed of three parts: A New Species, Migration and Redemption.
The initial setting for the story is StemDiscovery, a newly started company located in a sprawling complex south of Miami. The horror created there spreads throughout the country and then to the rest of the world
PART II OF SYNOPSIS FOR THE BEAST AWAITS
MIGRATION
The beast spawned at StemDiscovery escapes to the Everglades where it begins laying eggs. The characteristics of its amphibian component, parthenogenesis, provided this ability. The eggs hatch and the beasts rapidly multiply.
A park ranger discovers the population and is killed. Tragedies continue. The government cordons off the park. As the government waits, the population of beasts continues to grow and depletes the Everglades of animal life. The beasts break out and threaten Natalie at her research site. John Martin and Dan Webb go to her rescue, and Dan Webb is killed by a beast.
Chief Daniels is alerted of the beast’s breakout. Swarms of the beasts decimate Florida City and move on to Miami. Because of the suddenness of the attacks and the activities in progress when the population flees, cities are left in flames. The beasts’ numbers continue to grow and spread west across the Gulf, then south into Central and South America and north. They reach England by using cruise ships as resting places and sources of food. As their territory increases, huge cities burn to the ground resulting in a massive increase in global warming which serves to increase the territory the cold-blooded monsters can inhabit.
John Martin takes his family to Maine, which is safe for a while, but then is also invaded. The family goes north into Canada.
This is Part II of my synopsis for my novel, The Beast Awaits. Let me know if this sounds like a novel you might be interested in reading.
THE BEAST AWAITS: A NOVEL, SYNOPSIS PART I
Here is the beginning of the synopsis promised in my last post.
THE BEAST AWAITS
By Walt Trizna
Synopsis
The Beast Awaits is a novel composed of three parts: A New Species, Migration and Redemption.
The initial setting for the story is StemDiscovery, a newly started company located in a sprawling complex south of Miami. The horror created there spreads throughout the country and then to the rest of the world
PART I OF SYNOPSIS FOR THE BEAST AWAITS
A NEW SPECIES
Part I, A New Species, follows the formation of a new species, a hybrid creature that is part human, part amphibian and part insect. At the root of this monster’s accidental creation is greed on the part of one of the investors in StemDiscovery. The company was formed by a group of venture capitalists for the purpose of exploiting the relatively new field of stem cell research.
Harding Fairfax, one of the driving forces involved in forming the company, has recently remarried. His stepson, Ralph, is a ne’er-do-well and drug addict. Fairfax goes to the head of research, Dan Webb, and insists that Ralph be put to work. He further insists that he be involved in working with a new stem cell line coming from Singapore. The origin of this cell line is a mystery, the truth known only to Fairfax and those in Singapore who created it using a human embryo. Unknown to science, this cell line contains a unique stem cell, a primordial stem cell, whose development depends on the nutrients provided.
Dan Webb informs John Martin, head of the lab that will handle the new cells, that he is gaining a new employee.
Ralph is put under the supervision of Janice, the lab supervisor working under John Martin. Unaccustomed to the sophisticated setting of a research laboratory, Ralph constantly makes mistakes in the care of the cells given to him. He repeatedly uses the wrong media to feed them. The contents of the various media used will have disastrous results. Soon he notices that the cells are changing. He destroys them and is given a fresh batch. His mistakes continue with the same results. He is given a walk-in incubator in which only he will keep cells so that he will not jeopardize anyone else’s work. One day, as he goes to retrieve the flasks, he stumbles and one of the flasks falls to the floor behind the shelves out of sight.
Janice notes an odd growth pattern in the flasks and consults John Martin about their strange appearance. Martin looks at them and orders them destroyed.
Ralph, given no further cells and only trusted with remedial chores, spends most of his time hiding in vacant labs, avoiding work and getting high.
The cells in the dropped flask continue to grow, rupture the flask and become a larva.
Janice invites her niece, Natalie, to visit the StemDiscovery complex. As they make their way down a corridor where Ralph spends most of his time, he hears them coming and ducks into the walk-in incubator. The larva stings him, subdues him, and then uses him as a food source. It then weaves a cocoon suspended from the ceiling of the incubator and morphs into the beast.
Sometime later, Janice walks past the incubator and notices movement through the window of the door. She opens the door and is killed by the beast, which then runs down the corridor, crashes through a plate-glass window and escapes.
Chief Daniels from nearby Florida City is called to investigate.
This is Part I of my synopsis for my novel, The Beast Awaits. Let me know if this sounds like a novel you might be interested in reading.
THE BEAST AWAITS: A NEW NOVEL OF HORROR
THE BEAST AWAITS: A NEW NOVEL OF HORROR
The synopsis for my unpublished novel, The Beast Awaits, is about to appear on my blog. The novel consists of three parts. The first is primarily science fiction and the next two are pure horror. I’m sharing the synopsis to see what interest to novel sparks and to receive comments. I am not looking for likes. I am seeking opinions.
Later this year I will begin publishing, on my blog, another new novel, Sweet Depression. That work will be yours for free.
ELMO’S INVENTION: CHAPTER 13, THE FUTURE OF THE TIME MACHINE
CHAPTER 13
THE FUTURE OF THE TIME MACHINE
Kingsley continued.
“Then there are political races. Knowledge of the winner, prior to an election, would be devastating. It would result in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why vote if the winner is known?
“The insurance industry would collapse. Insurers of property and life could look to the future and see which policies would cost them money, and how soon. Of course, all life insurance policies would eventually result in a claim but how soon would determine if it was worth issuing a policy.
“These are just a few of the instances where your machine could determine the present by knowing the future.
“Then there is the bigger picture. In science fiction, whenever someone travels into the past they make sure not to change a single thing. Step on a beetle and you could come back to a different world. But you see, even when you are traveling into the future you are trespassing on someone’s past.
“A traveler into the future could return with viruses and bacteria unknown to the world and cause world-wide epidemics. Or coming from the past could reintroduce diseases long eradicated, for which there is now no defense.
“I’ve been thinking about H.G. Wells book The Time Machine. Of course it was fiction, but the future looked dismal for mankind. When the time traveler traveled into the distant future the planet was inhabited by giant crabs. I know this is only fiction, but do we really want to know what the distant future holds?
“Elmo, I’m afraid the society of the world, as we know it, would not survive the impact your machine would produce. The change in the fabric of society would also be devastating and disruptive in the lives of you and Mildred. Devastating to all the world.”
Kingsley’s opinions carried a great deal of weight with Elmo. He sat in silence and then said, “All that work for nothing. I’m a failure.”
“No, you’re not. It’s just that your efforts could produce knowledge the world would be unable to handle. I know it isn’t much, but I’m proud of what you accomplished. Perhaps there will be a time when your time machine will serve a useful purpose, under strict control, but I’m afraid that time is not now.
“The final choice is yours, Elmo. I can only give you my advice and opinion.”
Kingsley then stood up, put his hand on Elmo’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze, and walked upstairs. He saw Mildred in the kitchen. “I think Elmo needs to be alone for a while, but he also needs you.” Kingsley left and Mildred knew the discussion did not go well.
She waited and then walked down the cellar stairs. Elmo was wheeling his time machine to a corner of the cellar and covering it with a tarp. It now stood next to his transport chambers. Whenever he looked at those chambers a slight smile would wrinkle his face wondering at the location of the wandering teacup. Mildred walked up to her husband and gave him a hug and a lingering kiss.
He said, “Well, Mil, we won’t make our fortune off my time machine after all.”
Mildred responded, “I don’t need a fortune. All I need is you. It’s getting late. Let’s go to bed.”
They walked up the stairs and put out the cellar lights. In the darkened corner stood the time machine which someday might serve a purpose, but not now.
Elmo vowed to Mildred that he was done creating or even thinking about another invention. Never again would he waste his time on another useless project. But ‘never’ ended in 1995 with speculation of the existence of wormholes. The now retired Elmo could not get wormholes out of his mind. Think about how they could be used for space travel. He thought wormholes, dreamed wormholes. With pad and pencil in hand he began jotting down ideas and drawing sketches of an invention he, of course, would never produce. What would be the harm in dreaming?
THE END
This concludes my postings of Elmo’s Invention. I hope you enjoyed the novella and getting to know Elmo.
Soon I will begin sharing another novella featuring Elmo, Elmo’s Sojourn. In Elmo’s Invention you learned of Elmo’s interest in time travel. In Elmo’s Sojourn you will learn of Elmo’s interest in space travel.
Elmo’s Sojourn has quite a publishing history. Soon I will tell you about that history and give you some information about Elmo’s Sojourn.
