Here's the Story so Far from the Great Round Robin Gang. All we need is an editor and a therapist and we could recreate Woodstock.
Enjoy all! (We encourage you to join in the Fun)
Chapter One:
Madeleine Pugh pondered the horizon, watching the sun rise over the quary. Coffee and bacon aromas captured her senses, but her soul sang its own song in the snowy morn. She slid open the door to feel the wintry chill, when she thought she saw a silver blimp floating over the neighbor's cabin. She blinked furiously and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Heck, Ed the Norwegian bachelor was just crazy enough to rent one of those balloon thingys. Last month he'd planted 50 plastic pink pelicans in his front yard -- to announce his birthday -- and people were still talking about THAT as if it was a 'coming out' event. Hell, maybe it was. After all Ed did work for the Democrats in the last cycle, and he sipped wine coolers at the association picnic when everyone else was content to drink Bud. Madeleine looked again, and her heart suddenly skipped a beat. It wasn't a blimp. It was a pteradactyl, with a wingspan the size of a football field. It's shriek made Madeleine grab her ears and cower on the deck, looking for coverage. She could see the talons dangling from its webbed feet, like one of those arcade claw vending machines. What in God's name was it? A Hollywood stunt? A top-secret government experiment? It swung in closer and she could see there was something clutched in those spiny fingers.
Squinting against the rising sun, one hand acting as an awning for her eyes, she spied Ed twisting in the talons. Blood trickled from his hands, spilling onto the white snow below. It left a trail, like breadcrumbs. Madeline decided she needed to follow it, to free Ed. But first, she had to finish up the batch of pumpkin spice cookies she had just placed on the wire rack in her ultra modern kitchen to cool. She rushed about the kitchen like a mad woman, throwing powdered sugar, orange food color and vanilla flavoring into a large crockery bowl that once belonged her great-gradmother, Magadena Figg. (The Figgs were related to her mother by marriage so she was actually Madaliene's great-grandmother-in-law). She slapped at her face and left powdery white finger prints on her cheek as she worked furiously, beating the frosting to the perfect consistency, her mind racing... what to do? What to do? As she slathered thick, creamy rich frosting on the last of the pumpkin cookies an idea suddenly occurred to her. She ran back outside and saw that the pterodactyl had landed atop her barn and was casually plucking Ed's hair, preparing to gobble him up for a light afternoon snack. Creeping down the steps, she bounded across the alley to Ed's garage where she Finally rolled over and nearly fell out of the bed. She caught her wrist on the night table, the dream still lingering.
"Are you okay," Ed said, sitting up in bed. "What time is it?"
"Geez, Ed," Madeliene said. "I've had one helluva . . . well, you wouldn't believe it if I . . ."
She was sweating. She sniffed. She thought she smelled the aroma of pumpkin spice.
Ed braced her hand. "Didn't you have an appointment this morning with the lawyer about that civil action suit you filed?"
Madeleine thought a second, gathering her wits and the realized he was right. She was already late to meet with the man for Yu, Sooem and Wyn about the misuse of electronic devices. The whole neighborhood association was with her on this, exceptthe one man she assumed would always be there for her. Not this time.
Ed watched her dress and apply her makeup, his hands folded behind his head and a slight smile on his lips. Madeleine placed her hand on the doorknob, but paused to look back at her lover.
"Aren't you going to say anything? You're just going to let me leave?"
"Maddy, what do you want me to say? You know how I feel about this. It wasn't as if I intended to contact some other planet with that old transmitter. It was just a quirk. And I'm sure as hell not going to the next board meeting just to get beat up about it. I can only say 'I'm sorry' so many times."
She slowly shook her head and stared at her feet.
"Oh, ya--I forgot. It was a quirk. Now everyone's in danger, because of your little experiment with time travel! You knew not to send that big obelisk back to the Stone Ages! Now they've found them all over the Solar System! Just the other day, a huge black obelisk suddenly appeared in rush hour traffick and shut down all six lanes for hours! Oh, this is ridiculous. I don't want to argue with you, Ed. If everyone goes about inventing time machines, we'll soon run out of time and have to start looking for a new fourth dimension. I swear, honey, just try to be reasonable. Come to the meeting with me and afterwards, I'll buy you a nice new set of golf clubs. Isn't playing golf more fun than all that tinkering you do back there in the shed?"
"I'm not going to face those people and apologize again to the whole neighborhood one at a time! Just go. I'll have some food ready when you get back."
She kissed him on the cheek and left. He leaped from bed when he heard her car start. He peeked through the curtains to make sure she actually pulled away, then quickly got dressed. He had to get down to the shed to check on his 350Z Coupe. It was his escape if Armageddon did indeed occur.
Ed reached the doorway as a shadow fell over the front deck.
Walking up to the rail, he could tell that something eclipsed the sun. Was it an obelisk? Was it the pteradactyl from Maddy's dreams? Was it the Charlie Brown balloon from the Macy's Day parade, cast astray in the mayhem caused by the obelisk that touched down in Manhattan? At the same time, Ed heard the old Ham radio receiver on the workbench crackle and hiss, and then an unmistakable voice came booming over the loudspeaker. It was a familiar voice--the same voice he'd heard weeks before, on that fateful evening in February when his world turned upside down.
Ed ran to the old Heathkit, and tweaked the tuning before switching on the transmitter and grasping the mic with both hands.
"I told you to leave me alone! I've had enough! Can't you see that that you've gotten me into a world of trouble already? My wife is on the verge of leaving me! Over and out!"
"You can't tune me out, Ed," the voice crackled in his ears like the voice of doom. "You can't EVER tune out or turn me off, Ed. You created me. I am now a part of your life. So what if she leaves you? You can get another wife, but you'll never be able to replace me."
"Get out! Get out of my life!" Ed shouted and yanked the wires from the back of the set. He held the plug up and looked at the frayed old wires. "There! That should do it!"
"Ed? Ed, are you there?" the voice sputtered from the speaker. "Why did you try to kill me? You know I canot die. Not as long as you live."
Ed's eyes widened as he realized that he had forgotten to take his medication. Even this radio became his enemy now. Madeliene was keeping the neighbors at bay as they prepared the pitchforks to surround his shed. He had wrought much damage in the name of this thin, wiry voice that lived in all the appliances in the house. He knew its name. It came and went like sleek cat on a back fence at midnight.
He swallowed hard and then turned his back on the voice that continued to accuse him of attempted electronicide. The dreaded voice of his enemy. Yes, he had built the time machine o escape the voice. How was he to know that it would only be a temporary fix? How was he to know that it would only add more voices to his inner choir?
This one, the voice of H.G. Wells, had started it. Now the cacophony could include the voice of Thomas Edison one moment, and Bill Gates the next. It was driving him crazy, and he knew it had to stop.
"Vista. Vista! VISTA! Vista is an operating system like NO other!" He clamped his hands over his ears, but it was to no avail.
Over the din in his head, Ed could hear the impassioned pleas of his beloved Maddy, trying desperately to save him from the crowd outside. He loved her, and yet even she had threatened to turn him over to the authorities. He could trust no one, it seemed.
Through the open shutter Ed finally saw what had caused the strange shadow that had earlier blotted out the sun. It was, in fact, the Hindenburg, brought back through the portal by his monstrous machine earlier that day. From the bow, a slender mooring rope dangled, almost touching the ground. If he could but reach it before the mob outside Ed latched onto the rope as the behemoth vehicle obscured the sun. His palms burned from the rope as the gap between land and his feet broadened.
In the distance he could hear Vincent Price yelling, "you can't escape me. Darkness will fall across this land. The midnight hour will be close at hand."
Ed tried to hoist further up the rope, but his arms were weak from shoveling the giant hole in his garage. He thought he wouldn't be able to hold on much longer, when he heard a hiss from above as the rope was hoisted inside the giant Zepplin.
Dear God, what was up there? "Welcome to the Nautilus," came a voice.
It was an Englishman dressed in Raj attire holding a sextant and a compass. He directed six short, hobbit size men to secure the rope, while another presented Ed with a frosty glass of lemonade — pink. Ed stared at the glass. In the reflection he saw Maddy's face. She wept and he could bear it no longer. He didn't care that he was a mile high in a derigible with Nemo and Frodo Baggins. He just wanted to return to Maddy's arms. He came to the airship's brink and then . . .
The alarm clock boomed, plummeting Ed from his bed, his face smashed to the carpeting.
"You'll be late," said the woman who kept him company, except her voice was low and gritty.
Ed hoisted himself onto the mattress expecting to see his adoring Maddy, but The smiling face of Roseanne Barr reared up in front of his horrified eyes.
"No, no, no!" he shouted and clamped his hands over his ears. It was more than he could bear. And she was wearing his underwear on her head... again. This was getting old and he had to get a grip on reality. He pushed himself up and ran his hands through his thick, curly hair, squeezing his eyes closed. He repeated the magick phrase that would take him back to reality.
"There's no place like home."
"There's no place like home."
Enjoy all! (We encourage you to join in the Fun)
Chapter One:
Madeleine Pugh pondered the horizon, watching the sun rise over the quary. Coffee and bacon aromas captured her senses, but her soul sang its own song in the snowy morn. She slid open the door to feel the wintry chill, when she thought she saw a silver blimp floating over the neighbor's cabin. She blinked furiously and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Heck, Ed the Norwegian bachelor was just crazy enough to rent one of those balloon thingys. Last month he'd planted 50 plastic pink pelicans in his front yard -- to announce his birthday -- and people were still talking about THAT as if it was a 'coming out' event. Hell, maybe it was. After all Ed did work for the Democrats in the last cycle, and he sipped wine coolers at the association picnic when everyone else was content to drink Bud. Madeleine looked again, and her heart suddenly skipped a beat. It wasn't a blimp. It was a pteradactyl, with a wingspan the size of a football field. It's shriek made Madeleine grab her ears and cower on the deck, looking for coverage. She could see the talons dangling from its webbed feet, like one of those arcade claw vending machines. What in God's name was it? A Hollywood stunt? A top-secret government experiment? It swung in closer and she could see there was something clutched in those spiny fingers.
Squinting against the rising sun, one hand acting as an awning for her eyes, she spied Ed twisting in the talons. Blood trickled from his hands, spilling onto the white snow below. It left a trail, like breadcrumbs. Madeline decided she needed to follow it, to free Ed. But first, she had to finish up the batch of pumpkin spice cookies she had just placed on the wire rack in her ultra modern kitchen to cool. She rushed about the kitchen like a mad woman, throwing powdered sugar, orange food color and vanilla flavoring into a large crockery bowl that once belonged her great-gradmother, Magadena Figg. (The Figgs were related to her mother by marriage so she was actually Madaliene's great-grandmother-in-law). She slapped at her face and left powdery white finger prints on her cheek as she worked furiously, beating the frosting to the perfect consistency, her mind racing... what to do? What to do? As she slathered thick, creamy rich frosting on the last of the pumpkin cookies an idea suddenly occurred to her. She ran back outside and saw that the pterodactyl had landed atop her barn and was casually plucking Ed's hair, preparing to gobble him up for a light afternoon snack. Creeping down the steps, she bounded across the alley to Ed's garage where she Finally rolled over and nearly fell out of the bed. She caught her wrist on the night table, the dream still lingering.
"Are you okay," Ed said, sitting up in bed. "What time is it?"
"Geez, Ed," Madeliene said. "I've had one helluva . . . well, you wouldn't believe it if I . . ."
She was sweating. She sniffed. She thought she smelled the aroma of pumpkin spice.
Ed braced her hand. "Didn't you have an appointment this morning with the lawyer about that civil action suit you filed?"
Madeleine thought a second, gathering her wits and the realized he was right. She was already late to meet with the man for Yu, Sooem and Wyn about the misuse of electronic devices. The whole neighborhood association was with her on this, exceptthe one man she assumed would always be there for her. Not this time.
Ed watched her dress and apply her makeup, his hands folded behind his head and a slight smile on his lips. Madeleine placed her hand on the doorknob, but paused to look back at her lover.
"Aren't you going to say anything? You're just going to let me leave?"
"Maddy, what do you want me to say? You know how I feel about this. It wasn't as if I intended to contact some other planet with that old transmitter. It was just a quirk. And I'm sure as hell not going to the next board meeting just to get beat up about it. I can only say 'I'm sorry' so many times."
She slowly shook her head and stared at her feet.
"Oh, ya--I forgot. It was a quirk. Now everyone's in danger, because of your little experiment with time travel! You knew not to send that big obelisk back to the Stone Ages! Now they've found them all over the Solar System! Just the other day, a huge black obelisk suddenly appeared in rush hour traffick and shut down all six lanes for hours! Oh, this is ridiculous. I don't want to argue with you, Ed. If everyone goes about inventing time machines, we'll soon run out of time and have to start looking for a new fourth dimension. I swear, honey, just try to be reasonable. Come to the meeting with me and afterwards, I'll buy you a nice new set of golf clubs. Isn't playing golf more fun than all that tinkering you do back there in the shed?"
"I'm not going to face those people and apologize again to the whole neighborhood one at a time! Just go. I'll have some food ready when you get back."
She kissed him on the cheek and left. He leaped from bed when he heard her car start. He peeked through the curtains to make sure she actually pulled away, then quickly got dressed. He had to get down to the shed to check on his 350Z Coupe. It was his escape if Armageddon did indeed occur.
Ed reached the doorway as a shadow fell over the front deck.
Walking up to the rail, he could tell that something eclipsed the sun. Was it an obelisk? Was it the pteradactyl from Maddy's dreams? Was it the Charlie Brown balloon from the Macy's Day parade, cast astray in the mayhem caused by the obelisk that touched down in Manhattan? At the same time, Ed heard the old Ham radio receiver on the workbench crackle and hiss, and then an unmistakable voice came booming over the loudspeaker. It was a familiar voice--the same voice he'd heard weeks before, on that fateful evening in February when his world turned upside down.
Ed ran to the old Heathkit, and tweaked the tuning before switching on the transmitter and grasping the mic with both hands.
"I told you to leave me alone! I've had enough! Can't you see that that you've gotten me into a world of trouble already? My wife is on the verge of leaving me! Over and out!"
"You can't tune me out, Ed," the voice crackled in his ears like the voice of doom. "You can't EVER tune out or turn me off, Ed. You created me. I am now a part of your life. So what if she leaves you? You can get another wife, but you'll never be able to replace me."
"Get out! Get out of my life!" Ed shouted and yanked the wires from the back of the set. He held the plug up and looked at the frayed old wires. "There! That should do it!"
"Ed? Ed, are you there?" the voice sputtered from the speaker. "Why did you try to kill me? You know I canot die. Not as long as you live."
Ed's eyes widened as he realized that he had forgotten to take his medication. Even this radio became his enemy now. Madeliene was keeping the neighbors at bay as they prepared the pitchforks to surround his shed. He had wrought much damage in the name of this thin, wiry voice that lived in all the appliances in the house. He knew its name. It came and went like sleek cat on a back fence at midnight.
He swallowed hard and then turned his back on the voice that continued to accuse him of attempted electronicide. The dreaded voice of his enemy. Yes, he had built the time machine o escape the voice. How was he to know that it would only be a temporary fix? How was he to know that it would only add more voices to his inner choir?
This one, the voice of H.G. Wells, had started it. Now the cacophony could include the voice of Thomas Edison one moment, and Bill Gates the next. It was driving him crazy, and he knew it had to stop.
"Vista. Vista! VISTA! Vista is an operating system like NO other!" He clamped his hands over his ears, but it was to no avail.
Over the din in his head, Ed could hear the impassioned pleas of his beloved Maddy, trying desperately to save him from the crowd outside. He loved her, and yet even she had threatened to turn him over to the authorities. He could trust no one, it seemed.
Through the open shutter Ed finally saw what had caused the strange shadow that had earlier blotted out the sun. It was, in fact, the Hindenburg, brought back through the portal by his monstrous machine earlier that day. From the bow, a slender mooring rope dangled, almost touching the ground. If he could but reach it before the mob outside Ed latched onto the rope as the behemoth vehicle obscured the sun. His palms burned from the rope as the gap between land and his feet broadened.
In the distance he could hear Vincent Price yelling, "you can't escape me. Darkness will fall across this land. The midnight hour will be close at hand."
Ed tried to hoist further up the rope, but his arms were weak from shoveling the giant hole in his garage. He thought he wouldn't be able to hold on much longer, when he heard a hiss from above as the rope was hoisted inside the giant Zepplin.
Dear God, what was up there? "Welcome to the Nautilus," came a voice.
It was an Englishman dressed in Raj attire holding a sextant and a compass. He directed six short, hobbit size men to secure the rope, while another presented Ed with a frosty glass of lemonade — pink. Ed stared at the glass. In the reflection he saw Maddy's face. She wept and he could bear it no longer. He didn't care that he was a mile high in a derigible with Nemo and Frodo Baggins. He just wanted to return to Maddy's arms. He came to the airship's brink and then . . .
The alarm clock boomed, plummeting Ed from his bed, his face smashed to the carpeting.
"You'll be late," said the woman who kept him company, except her voice was low and gritty.
Ed hoisted himself onto the mattress expecting to see his adoring Maddy, but The smiling face of Roseanne Barr reared up in front of his horrified eyes.
"No, no, no!" he shouted and clamped his hands over his ears. It was more than he could bear. And she was wearing his underwear on her head... again. This was getting old and he had to get a grip on reality. He pushed himself up and ran his hands through his thick, curly hair, squeezing his eyes closed. He repeated the magick phrase that would take him back to reality.
"There's no place like home."
"There's no place like home."