Giddeon (Silver Strand Series) (13 page)

When I was in my coma, I saw so many things.
 
So many places.
 
So many futures and so many pasts.
 
The one thing I never saw was something that couldn’t be explained.

No UFO’s or extra-terrestrials.
 
No little green men or flying carpets.
 

Everything was Earth based… even the planet
Eden
and the 4 movie goers from so far away.
 
It was all seeded from here and used technologies evolved from us.
 
I think Giddeon kept it that way on purpose.
 
It was easier for me to relate to.
 

God only knows what he has seen and experienced… I’m sure it’ll come out on his tapes, one day.

But, there’s something I didn’t tell you.
 

I have seen one thing in my life that’s unexplained.

Something I can’t really figure out to this day.

I don’t know if it has any relevance to the rest of my story, but I think I should set it down… at least just to have a record of it.

I saw… well, I don’t really know what I saw.

*****

I was young.
 
So young I could barely talk.
 
It was maybe 7 o’clock at night and my parents had gone into a grocery store, leaving me and Jeremy in the car.
 
It was a small town, and no one ever gave a second thought to leaving their kids unattended for a short time such as that.
 
Besides, my brother was quite a bit older, anyway.
 

It was late autumn, and the air was crisp.
 
We sat in the car just waiting like obedient kids.
 

That was when I saw what I saw.

I can still see them as plain as day.
 

Two… creatures?

Two creatures that appeared in front of the large, paned-glass windows of the store.
 
Not humanoid, at all.
 
The best way to describe them would be to say they were inverted, segmented cones, orange in color and approximately 6 feet tall.
 
Towards the apex of each entity the cone did a bit of a curve, and there was a hollow disc-like area that seemed to be something of an eye… or, at least an aperture through which they peered.

The two forms were wide at the base, maybe three feet in diameter, and the segments were a few inches in width and stacked one on top of the other… kind of like that cartoon of the Michelin Tire Man, except, like I said, orange and progressively decreasing in size towards the top.
 
The portion that contained the ‘eye’ was maybe 4 inches across, and was sloped over so that it was horizontal with the ground.

I stared at them, wide-eyed, in amazement.

Jeremy obviously didn’t see them, but, I didn’t bother to ask about that because I was so fascinated.
 
I watched them mill about… I’m not sure how they did that because I saw no feet or appendages.
 
They were looking through the glass and into the store.
 
That must have lasted for all of 10 seconds.
 
They seemed to be communicating, but I could hear nothing with the windows of the car rolled up.

Then, one of them turned and ‘looked’ directly at me.
 
In a couple of seconds, the other one (that one was slightly taller and seemed to be in charge) did likewise.
 
I could tell they were shocked that I could see them and that they really didn’t know what to make of it.
 

After that… nothing.

I don’t remember them leaving.

The next thing I knew my parents were getting in the station wagon, and I tried to explain to them exactly what I had seen.
 
My brother was relaying something to them as they settled themselves in to their seats.
 
I remember my mom saying,

“Oh, he just saw someone in a winter coat.”

Those were no winter coats.
 
I might have been young, but I knew better than that.
 

Then, my dad postulated that I had fallen asleep and had been dreaming.
 
I adamantly told him, ‘
No
’, and tried to explain with my limited vocabulary that I was very much awake.
 
I continued to try to get across what I had seen, but it was to no avail.
 
Finally, I gave up.
 
I drew a picture of what I had seen for Jeremy when we got home… I was old enough to do that.
 
He was fascinated by my amateur artwork and asked me to describe them in great detail.

I stayed up late into the night, expecting the creatures to return, but, they never did.

I drew them for years and years, when I was doodling around with a pencil and paper and didn’t have anything else to do.

When we were older, I asked Jeremy if he remembered the incident, and he said that he did.
 
He said that we were waiting there in the car, and that I kind of went nuts, pointing and crying and trying to get him to see something, which he was unable to do.
 
He had no idea what had upset me so much at the time, and when we got home I drew the inverted cones for him.
 
He just chalked it up to an overactive imagination and tried to humor me.

I don’t remember any of the crying or pointing… I don’t remember being scared at all… just fascinated.

Anyway, that’s it.
 

My one encounter with the Twilight Zone.
 
I don’t know why I felt compelled to write about it… it just seemed like I should.

*****

You want to hear something so sad that it’s funny?
 
I almost built a replica of Mia.
 
I considered going to a department store and getting a mannequin, dressing her in white clothes and putting a golf club in her hands.
 
Then, I was going to bring her to the first tee and position her in that cute stance that Mia had when she addressed the ball.
 
My intention was to take a picture of the mannequin and then cartoon-
ize
it with one of those computer programs.
 
I figured if I did a good enough job, I wouldn’t be able to tell it was just a dummy, and I could imagine it was a picture of her on the monitor.

I never did that… thank goodness.
 
I found out later that Mia would have seen it all if I had.
 
Boy, would that have been embarrassing!

Anyway, I did the next best thing.
 
I wrote a song about a similar project.

Giddeon reached over and grabbed my guitar.
 
We were in my study.
 
Giddy was taking a nap down the hall as Melody taped another session.

I wrote this one pretty quickly.
 
I think Greg left behind some of his lyrical skills when he went back over to the other side… thanks, bro.
 
It’s called, ‘
Ikea
Girl’.

He chopped a few A chords and began.

I got a girl from
Ikea
,

Put her together, you should see her.

She’s made of Indonesian wood…

And, she treats me so good.

And, she looks so fine…

When I bring home a bottle of wine…

I look at her and love her so much…

But, sometimes I wish that she could touch... me…

That she could hold me…

That she could look into my eyes

And, tell me what she did while I was gone.

Did she write a song?

Did she do her hair?

Did she miss me, and, does she really, really care?

Does she really, really care?

It ain’t her fault,

Who is John Galt?

I’m sure that she would tell me if she could…

It ain’t her fault,

Her heart’s a vault,

She’s just simply Indonesian wood.

Indonesian wood.

I got a girl from
Ikea
,

She’s from the forests of Gaea,

I’m so glad I got her off the shelf…

I love her and no one else.

And, now she looks so fine…

When I bring home a bottle of wine…

I look at her; I love her so much…

But sometimes I wish that she could touch... me…

That she could hold me…

That she could look into my eyes

And, tell me what she did while I was gone

Did she write a song?

Did she do her hair?

Did she miss me, and, does she really, really care?

Does she really, really care?

Does she really, really, care?

When he finished the song… he busted up laughing and told us we should make a video of it.
 
He had it all mapped out.
 
Putting together the mannequin on the floor.
 
Shooting footage of me and her on a two-seater bicycle.
 

Sitting at a table with a bottle of wine between us…

I wonder if Giddeon had had a little wine, himself, that afternoon : )

*****

Days passed, and Raymond Bradford worked like a man possessed.
 
He and Sampson had moved to
Texas
and stayed there pretty much full-time as the details of the project were fleshed out and put into production.
 
He calculated that the 2 billion dollars collected from
Kickstarter
would probably just barely cover what he was trying to accomplish.
 
No matter… he had more, if needed.
 
I suppose he figured that money wouldn’t be much good if a tidal wave washed over all of the continents and swept everything away.
 

The logistics of such a launch and landing are ridiculous, and I was amazed that there are people smart enough to even attempt something like that.

Kind of gives me hope for humanity.
 

*****

The thing that gave Raymond the most trouble was the dispersal system.
 
How to get that much paint directed at an optimal angle to cover the most area.
 
There was no time to make a mobile vehicle, like a magnetic Mars Rover.
 
It would all have to be done from one location, and there was no gravity to help arc liquid down like water does when sprayed from a hose on Earth.

So, it was decided that a telescoping, directional pipe was their best bet.
 
The higher the nozzle from the base, the more area he would be able to cover.
 
The lack of gravity could actually play in his favor from that vantage point.
 
The only problem was that the more moving parts, the more chances of something going wrong.
 
After numerous brainstorming sessions with his engineers, a prototype was developed and tested.
 
Of course, modifications had to be made, but finally a design was settled upon.

In the meantime, rocket engines were brought in from overseas and tested for thrust and performance.
 
An Epsilon solid fuel booster and multi-stage platform from
Japan
was chosen for its reliability and thrust, capable of carrying a 1200 kilo payload into orbit and beyond.
 
Raymond would have preferred the SLS from Boeing, but, due to the usual delays and cost overruns of most government programs, it wasn’t available in time.
 
The SLS could have carried a much larger load, and would have allowed more options for Ray’s design team… but, you have to play with the cards your dealt.
 

*****

To paint an asteroid is a lofty goal.
 
I found out, later, that Ray had another trick or two up his sleeve.
 
Like Giddeon says… it’s always good to have a Plan ‘B’… and, even, a Plan ‘C’.

*****

Quite a debate started to play out over the airways on television and talk radio.
 
The population was divided in its opinions of the danger and also as to action versus non-action.
 
I thought the discussions about global warming had at times been acrimonious… it was nothing compared to the asteroid conversations.

Message boards on the net sprang up with pros and cons of the feasibility and wisdom of tampering with the behemoth in orbit around our sun.
 
Alternate plans were discussed, the favorite being a nuclear blast to redirect or break up the rock.

A lot of people were convinced that it would pass harmlessly by, and that changing its path would be foolhardy.
 
Indeed, breaking it into several large fragments by an explosion might actually increase the possibility of impacts with the Earth.
 
Disagreements abounded and were heatedly discussed around kitchen tables and conference tables, alike.

The only thing that people seemed to agree upon was that we were woefully unprepared for such an eventuality.
 
People wondered why governments hadn’t dedicated more resources to identifying and eliminating such threats.
 
Mankind is notoriously short sighted when it comes to abstract dangers.
 

I guess, like in the story, no one wanted to pay attention to Chicken Little…

…except this time, the sky actually was falling.

*****