Page 64 - Contrast2014

Jonathan Goedeke

Rewind

Dave stood back, grease-stained and stooped, to look
at the fruit of his labor.

The Time Transpositor seemed like the engine room
that would have been produced if a steamship mated with
a nuclear plant. Roughly welded steel pipes loaded with
caustic chemicals snaked and snarled out across the
ceiling and along (or often into) the dank, cement walls.
Sprouting out amongst the pipes were an equal number of
cables and exposed wires, whose blue sparking jerked
shadows from dimly lit corners and spun them madly
across the concrete floor.

As he wiped his hands futilely on his holey, sweat-
stained, red t-shirt and faded jeans, Dave's joy flowed in
salty streams down his cheeks. It had been hard, oh so
hard, these sixteen months of slaving in fast food joints,
grocery stores, and coming home every night to see Doctor
of Advanced Theoretical Physics staring down at him
from his peeling wallpaper. Not that he had to see it
much. For four hundred and eighty-six days the basement
had been his only house. His pasty skin would never let
him forget those sunless hours, nor would his withered
stomach forget the last five days when he had given up
eating all together, spending every precious dollar in
shady dockside warehouses convincing "Joey," his go-
between, to part with another vital component which
would either cost too much legitimately or else was
normally unavailable to anyone without special
authorization.

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