It was a real hotdog of a Wednesday. You couldn’t throw a stone without hitting a smiling face. The pharmacist is handing out water balloons and there’s so much laughter going around you could make a hammock out of it. The Shriners are in the river, right down to their skivvies. The local law enforcement is having an arm wrestling match with the bowling team, loser buys hamburgers for the winner. Every cat & dog & hamster in town gets a taste of popsicle today. The red wagons are racing down the hill and the doughboys are raising up the flag. It’s the kind of sunshine that . . .

“Harvey, you’ve got no movementum! Your zi-fi is going neglar” the Valinora twins say in unison. Harvey pays no mind to their attempt to interrupt the world. There are lollipops to lick and free hula-hoops at the General Store.

The Valinora twins and Harvey’s mother and his teacher and his development engineer . . . they all live in space. They live on a colossal titanium cylinder that hurdles through the cosmos. They have concerns like relativity tremors, continuum meltdowns and many other abhorrent fatal conditions. There are many types of jobs on the cylinder; Harvey’s father is a quantum deconstructionalist. He records and studies the formation of concave electrons in four dimensions. Millions of lives rely on his work. So Harvey Fenton found a world. It is a far better place.

The prom king & queen show up at the car wash on the shoulders of the football team, nickel in hand and grinning from ear to ear. You can hear good time rock ’n’ roll on every radio dial in town, from the courthouse all the way to the kids dancing in the park. Old friends who saw each other yesterday are meeting on the sidewalk saying, “It’s like I haven’t seen you in a month full of Sundays! How’s life you old so & so?”

Down at the malt shop there’s a crowd of teens playing hop scotch on pogo-sticks while ol’ Denny puts a fresh soda pop in every hand. It’s enough to tickle you pink. All of a sudden, you can hear a voice through a megaphone, coming from the middle of town. Everyone is trying to hear it, the voice sounds so proud and excited. People start making their way towards it and soon they find that the Mayor is making a big flap in town square. One look and you can tell he’s pulling out all the stops. “We’ll have the whole country turning their heads” he says. “Right here in our little town, we are going to change the face of things. They’ll have to grind up boots to make enough ink for all the newspapers they’re going to print, and we’ll be on the front page of every one of them! So everybody mark your calendars with a big red circle on next week’s State Fair. Make sure the whole family is there, we don’t want anybody to miss it. Hold all your questions, we want it to be a surprise and yes, little Timmy, your goldfish can come too!” Applause ensued, games of marbles resumed and before you knew it, news of the big day filled up the town like a tall glass of . . .

“The council recognizes Alfred Fenton. The floor is yours Dr. Fenton.”

“Ahem. Dignitaries of the Living Tribunal, Masters from the Academy of Measure, Brothers of New Pluto, Shogun of Seventh Tokyo, fellow men and women of Zenith 1; I bid you all warm welcome to this assembly. These are auspicious times we live in. The constant threat of a hyper-speed collision with inverted atoms has been abated due to a noble sacrifice by the Centurian Congress to abstain from the use of corrupted neon densities as fuel.

“Those who call Zenith 1 home, allow me to congratulate you on successfully splicing the human genome with a neutrino, forming what we’re calling a photon-sapien.

“For five hundred years, the force or being known as ARC-10 has left a nuclear graveyard in its wake; trillions have been neglared. Incredibly, the Celestials have discovered a method by which entire galaxies can be suspended in a geodesic net, allowing their polarity to be augmented to the point of Pandrolenthal Cohesion. It has neutralized ARC-10 in every encounter thus far.

“Despite unpredictable, lethal variables arising from each hour of each day, survival has become an archaic notion. Neo-science has rendered time inconsequential, yet death remains inescapable. The inevitability of death is bested only by the inevitability of creation . . . which is why I stand before you now.

“As part of my work with concave electrons, atoms are ‘flattened’ in order to ‘stretch’ them laterally. This reveals the atom’s composition on a heleoscopic level. While an atom was in this state, I took the liberty to bombard it with mutated uranium particles. The result was a five spectrum transparency, rather than the previously established limit of four spectrums. I was incredulous. A discovery of this magnitude required sophisticated data to corroborate it. Immediately I began conducting an array of examinations. Upon running an electrical cryogenics scan, I was rewarded with the detection of sub-heleoscopic matter.

“I was alarmed at first. If my observations prove correct, they negate the principles on which neo-science is founded. I resolved to advance. Within a week, I was able to isolate the anomalies and thus able to complete a preliminary analysis of the anomaly’s properties. One characteristic in particular is remarkable: They emit a signal. A nano-frequency. The most infinitesimal pulse of information imaginable. Furthermore, they are all saying the same thing: X marks the spot.

“When filtered through a gamma compressor, one can observe a rudimentary numerical system within the signal. I superimposed the data on an interstellar map and followed the coordinates to a region of the universe previously thought to contain nothing but asteroid debris, millions of light-years from any formed cosmic bodies.

“Directions to one location in space are imprinted on every atom in the universe. My son and I depart tonight, to what could be the site of the Big Bang . . . ”

“Step right up! Don’t be shy, come on up here to make your friends hush and your girl blush! For heaven’s sake, show us your muscle milkshake! Win a prize for your doll and to your doll you’ll be a prize! Single file now folks, everybody gets a turn!” The carnies are in fine form, all down the midway, using every trick in the book to get a crowd. Speaking of tricks, the magician is looking grand, turning rabbits into cards, doing card tricks with no hands. A person’s senses can get tied up in a big gorgeous knot trying to take it all in at once: you can hear all manner of bells and whistles, whirling joy and garrulousness; the aroma of cotton candy, grass and canvas tent filling your nostrils; the night sky lit up with poppers, spanglers, bifflers and spazzlers.

Suddenly, beaming bright and strong through all the whimsy, is a spotlight on center stage. The outline of a small sphere, resting on the top of a four-legged table, is made visible by a white sheet. The flashing bulbs of the State Fair go dim and the music fades away. The Mayor strides up the stairs and onto the stage. He wears an expression of superlative wisdom as he waits for all eyes and ears to follow the spotlight. Finally, he begins. “Ladies and gentleman! Children of all ages! Tonight, we take our place among the stars . . . ”

“This is the final transmission from Dr. Alfred Fenton, aboard the Ulysses_7. At our current speed of twenty light years per millisecond, we will reach our destination in minutes. There are mental and physical phenomenons occurring. I am witnessing scar tissue on my forearm reverting into unmarred skin. The ship’s controls are reacting to my thoughts. I . . . I can remember . . . being born . . . ”

“Folks there is something special about this town. I know you all feel it. There is something here worth remembering . . . ”

“Everything is becoming translucent, as if all is evaporating. There is no doubt that we are not coming back from where we are going. Yet we are not afraid . . . ”

“ . . . what lies under this sheet is a way to keep our lovely little town just the way it is, forever. It is pure. It is perfect. Ladies and gentleman . . . ”

“My son Harvey is looking at me . . . truly looking at me for the first time. The opacity in his eyes is gone . . . his face is beaming. He is happy! My son . . . ”

“I give you . . . ”

“Harvey!”

And then there was light.