IF part 1 of 3

IFBefore I start writing, I need to try to remember what Professor Heinrich looked like. Each day that passes clouds his features more and more. Then too I only saw him five or six times, always outside his house.
He was a small, elderly man with a thick, white mustache, and goatee; and a bushy head of uncombed grey and white hair.
He’d walk out of his house a few feet, adjust his round owl glasses, and get the mail, or check the weather with an outstretched hand, or just clasp both hands behind his back and scan the neighborhood before going back inside.
I don’t think I even heard him speak except those few times he welcomed a heavy set visitor, about his age, that he addressed as Dr. Velokowsky, Velokinski, something like that. I also remember this visitor drove an old and massive maroon automobile.
Heinrich lived in a small, white, wood paneled, square, house with a cluster of gables on top. There was one scraggly tree out front, surrounded with a bed of pebbles and rocks as a front lawn, and a few sparse blades of grass poking up here and there.
There was also a small building behind the house, surrounded by waist high, unmowed, wild grass; that my father called the professor’s laboratory.
One day the Professor was gone. My mother told my father that she had heard he had died during the day, and was taken away in a slow moving ambulance without a siren. That was all she knew.
His house stayed empty and deserted for half a year, two seasons, until one morning when I woke up to truck noises. I didn’t have school, so I got up and went to investigate. In front of the Professor’s house was a flat bed trailer truck with a small bulldozer tied down toward the front of the trailer, and two men. One of the men started up the bulldozer, got it off the truck and moved toward the house as he raised it’s front claw.
I wondered how could such a little machine like that tear down a sturdy big house that had stood for decades? But it was no match. The claw came down on a corner of the house. It gave way with a crunch and a billow of smoke. I could now see into the empty house through the tear.
The bulldozer methodically repeated that move, time after time until a quarter of the house was done, and the entire roof slanted, with one edge touching the ground. My watch said it had all been done in just one half hour.
The rest of the house followed. Then the lab was leveled.
Next the men ate a sack lunch with bottled drinks, in the shade of the tree. While they ate, I looked beyond the mound of house rubble, and saw a stone walkway that wound like a wave from the house back to the now flattened lab. As I was leaving, the men were spraying down the two mounds of rubble with water.
I went back to my house to tell my parents about the destruction of the Professor’s house and lab. I thought, like me, they would be exhilarated by the news. Instead I got a lecture and a warning. “Don’t go prowling around over there. There’s boards with nails in them, and dangerous chemicals in the dust – and you know you get summer allergies!

IF part 2

Part 2

That afternoon I went back, and from a distance, watched the driver crunch the house mound into a smaller and taller mound. Then the first of two, long, empty, dump trucks pulled up. The bulldozer filled the first truck back to front up to the brim, and then packed it down with it’s claw. It drove off as the next dump truck pulled up. The debris that was left on the lot filled about two thirds of the second truck with room to spare. Then it too drove off. But the job was not finished.
The driver dug up the top layer of soil from street to alley and from neighbor lot to neighbor lot. That included all the tall grass and wild weeds in the back, except for a triangular patch left in each back corner, and some small strips along the edges that he couldn’t get to. The Professor’s House and lab were gone. The yard was a flat fallow field with a single small tree.
Next day I went exploring. There were no boards, no nails, and no chemical dust in the air, so I felt safe. I went to the center of the lot, did a 360 degree slow turn and looked on all sides. How strange to see half a hidden side of a stranger’s house on the left, and half a hidden side of another on the right!
I walked from the center to the far side boundary and followed it back from the street to the alley. I circled round the corner patch of grass left standing; and walked along the edge of the alley. When I reached the far corner patch of still standing grass and weeds; I noticed sunlight reflecting off something metallic.
I looked closer and found a piece of metal, light as aluminum, and curved like a clunky bracelet or arm band. But it wasn’t delicate or pretty like jewelry. Instead it was an industrial gray, dull, aluminum piece, shaped in a “U”. One of the two ends had a piece of torn elastic cord hanging from it. Maybe that was used to hold it on. The top was caked in dried dirt, but the back was clean. There was no writing of any kind that I could see. I put it on my wrist – too big! This was for an adult man’s arm!
I turned it over, found some wet grass, tore it out of the ground, and used it to clean off the metal. There wasn’t much to see underneath the dirt that was out of the ordinary; but there was something. A piece of metal, a small knob, seemed to be in the middle. I finished cleaning it with my handkerchief and some saliva, and then reexamined it.
In the middle was a small switch of some kind. It had been locked in the upright position; but now I could jiggle it a little to the left or right.
There was also a weathered piece of plastic or rubber around the tip of the knob; but only half of it was left. The rest had been worn away from being left outside.
I brought it up to my eyes to see it more clearly. There were two letters etched into the metal, one on each side of the switch. the left had the letter “I”, the right the letter “F”
“IF” what does that mean?
I put my handkerchief between my wrist and the bracelet so it would fit more snugly and stay in place. Then I wiggled the switch to loosen it until I could move it all the way to the left where it clicked in place. This locked it into position pointing to the “I”.
Suddenly I saw sunlight! My eyes were seeing the sun reflected off the grass below me. I looked back at the switch to check, and it wasn’t there. My arm wasn’t there, my body and legs weren’t there. Nothing about me was! But I still felt like I was there.

IF part 3

Part 3

I could think. I could see everything but me. I could feel my arm, my handkerchief, and
even the metal band. I was invisible – and invisible started with “I”. I was invisible!
I turned a complete 360 degrees and everything else was still there; the barren ground, the two neighbor’s houses, the street in front ,and alley in back. Everything but me. The band turned me invisible!
Well this is very interesting!!! But then a fear crept over me, could I turn back? What if I couldn’t turn back. I felt for the metal bracelet with my left hand, found it, then the knob, and pushed it hard to the center position.
When it clicked in place, I was immediately visible – every layer of my body was back to where it had been. My arms, legs, body, … the hair on my head! I walked around reviewing what had happened. Professor Heinrich has a wonderful invention here … or does he have two?
Then I studied and stared at the band again and asked myself, “What does “F” do?
Well I knew from experience that whatever it does, I can come back so …
I flipped the switch to the right until it clicked in position, and waited.
At first nothing changed. I stood in a ready-for-anything pose, light on my feet. Nothing changed… Then I noticed my feet were really lighter, my shoes were scraping the ground but the heels were up in the air. And, there was no feeling of body weight on my toes.
I stared at my feet as they slowly lifted. First there was barely a half inch between me and the ground. Then more inches, then a foot … Unconsciously, I was moving my arms to balance myself in thin air. When I did, I noticed that my arm movements changed flight direction!
My hands out to my sides seemed to keep me in a holding pattern. When I lowered them just a bit, I began to float back down. When I lifted them up beyond the horizontal, I began to rise up. I thought to myself, ‘let’s go for a spin!’ and raised them up and up aiming to see what straight up would do. With each movement up, my body ascended faster and faster, higher and higher. With arms straight up I was zooming like a rocket – too much! I could now see house tops. I could see across my neighborhood, street after street up the hill. This was breathtaking – this was magnificently strange! I slowly lowered my arms to hover while I took in the view.
I learned that twisting my hands turned me to the left one way, and to the right the other.
After I’d seen all the view I could take, I lowered my arms and floated to the ground. My legs were bent and ready. I landed with a soft bounce. I was back and safe!
“F” stood for Flying!
I flicked the switch back to the center. Well! Well! Well! Dr. Heinrich, what have you left me – a teen boy with an endless curiosity, and sense of adventure?
What would I do next?? Who would I tell???

The end

Sayings of Editor Art

Sayings of Editor Art

Musical formats and genres are a way of blocking creative people

Podcasts – they are like real radio but good!

War is the marketing ploy for the military industrial complex.

All that and a bag of quips

Rick democracy, versus poor drudgery.

Corporate socialism – tax breaks, subsides, and lobbied bills.

If the latest creation doesn’t look good on the model, it’s not going to look good on you!

3 reactions to the Sun/UV daily cycle: 1 it is destroyed, 2 it stays unchanged, 3 it changes and becomes more stable (life)

Government money to the rich doesn’t trickle down, it just adds up!

Mars waves hi to Earth, but ignores Venus and Mercury!

People say, you can be anything you want. Not so!
Because there are millions of others thinking the same thing!

3 “Independent” Nightly news programs cover the same stories often in the same order. Who is telling them what to do?

Pizza Album: an album mostly of cheesy crusty filler with only a few ‘pepperoni’ .

Running a government like a company means the people at the top have total control and the citizens do what they are told.

When you love someone in a TV show, do you love the actor or the screenwriter?

Theater workers couldn’t make less – the law doesn’t allow it.

Where do twins like to vacation?
Pango, Pango!

Science is like sweeping dust into a dust pan – there’s always a line of dust to go!

Remember when you see someone trip in a film, it’s just make believe.

I have two eyes so I want two Moons.

The people that apologize are the people most likely not to offend.

This is a fragment or frag.

Mini MUSEA

Dear Readers,Been a long time since you’ve seen a new issue of Musea! Still working on my big Psy Phy physics issue all about physics, yeah I know that is very unexpected!
Till then I sent two recent poems to Webmaster Matthew who posted them on our Musea site at Musea.us

NEW CONTENT!!!

The Seer

Morning, Storm, and Aftermath