Time Sharing

By Walt Dodge

Allen Jackson, an attorney with a heightened sense of Right and Wrong, has spent his career fighting for the victims of a society that has gotten so far off -track by political correctness nothing seems correct anymore. He attends a Timeshare Presentation where he wins the prize -- a prototype Lamborghini.

Later, while driving to a deposition, he stops to help a young woman who is getting mugged by a teenage street-urchin trying to steal her purse. He is transporting both of them to the hospital when they suddenly find themselves 500 years in the future where society has become a land of sexual bigots. Men are kept down and have the social status of a pet. An insane Judge whose only desire is to cause the total genocide of men, with the help of a supercomputer, runs the land.

She cons Al into defending a prisoner accused of a capital crime.

Accepting the appointment, he finds out too late that attorneys face the same punishment as the accused.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504968508

Walt Dodge

Walt Dodge is a highly decorated veteran of theVietnam War. He later became a certified teacher in California holding three credentials, an actor and director on stage and screen, plus a musician and composer winning the Drama Critic’s Circle award for best original score for Shakespeare's Tempest performed at the Globe Theatre. He has worked in Timeshare for thirty years where he is considered one of the best in the industry. Dodge was included in the 1984 edition of Distinguished Young Men of America. His previously published works include the novels The Nicoli Conspiracy and How to Survive a Hawaiian Honeymoon published by AuthorHouse. Also the novellas Time Soaring, The Competition, and Curtain Time. He lives in Southern California with his wife, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and dog, Shylo.

Book preview

Chapter 1

WELL, WE ARE HERE -- and on time. Happy, dear? Al was being as sarcastic as he could. This evening was a total waste of time. He knew it, and didn’t understand why Constance couldn’t.

Coming home from a long day at work, putting up with the scum of society, other attorneys, he was tired and simply wanted to have a quiet dinner and go to bed.

But, no! His wife had other plans that she, as usual, failed to tell him about.

Al parked the car and they walked to the building where she had made an appointment. It was a typical office building with the exterior being made of heavily tinted glass, gold in color, and five stories high. Located in a complex of like buildings surrounded by grass, trees, and a small manmade lake in the middle with ducks idly going about their lives. The illusion of a park-like setting was intended to put people utilizing the various businesses at ease.

Al appreciated the artistry the designer had incorporated. As they walked in silence -- he really didn’t have anything to say to Constance and she was angry with him anyway -- he momentarily reflected on the time in which he was living and some of the good things about it.

Yes, Al really did like the present. It wasn’t perfect, but in its imperfection was perfection.

The graceful artistry of his immediate surroundings helped to put him in a little better mood. This fact he found comforting as he attempted to adjust his mind for the exercise in self-abuse he was about to embark upon.

Toward the back of the lobby on the ground floor, a large glass double door with the words "Vacation Realities -- a Timesharing Company" was embossed at eye level.

They entered and Constance immediately went over to one of the couches in the reception room and seated herself. She picked up a travel magazine and began scanning the pictures.

Al watched this happen in silence thinking, Why shouldn’t she know the drill? I’m always the front monkey. The poor salesman will be lucky if he can get her to acknowledge his existence.

Al was down to earth, simple. He had not been raised affluently. He’d worked for everything. He possessed no rose-colored glasses and saw life as it really was. He was successful in his career and made a good living. They had a very nice house filled with exquisite furnishings and would be considered by most people to be well off. But Al didn’t care about things. He never had been materially oriented. He had a saying that he always used. Anything that can be bought with a dollar isn’t worth the shed of a tear.

His happiness had always come from the accomplishment of a goal. Doing something. Making a difference. Having an expensive home was great. Getting it was better.

The two of them couldn’t have been more different if they’d been born on different planets or in a different time.

Constance stood five feet, ten inches tall with an erect posture brought on by years of socialite training, including rigorous drills on how to stand, walk, sit, and carry herself according to her station in life. And that station was quite high. She had gone to private schools, and even had her own nanny. Want was not even in her vocabulary. Accordingly, when she desired her way, she got it. Her entire body language screamed that she wasn’t interested in anyone else’s opinion, especially her husband’s, and her impatience was mounting. At her station in society, the simple fact of attending a timeshare presentation was so far beneath her she scarcely believed she had allowed herself to be talked into it. The only reason she gave in was that her friend had gone and she was as affluent as Constance. Plus, she had convinced herself she would walk away with the grand prize.

She deserved it.

Constance believed she was above most people, certainly her husband, and couldn’t understand why the lower classes couldn’t seem to accept their place.

They were lower, and that was that.

Al looked the reception area over. It was pretty much the same as any other timeshare company he’d heard about: A reception desk with a smiling young girl behind it. Pictures of faraway destinations that would tantalize the nomadic spirit of mankind. Couples lazily lying on a deserted beach on a tropical island with a colorful frosty drink next to them and holding hands giving the impression that the vacation was the cause of the act of love. In some of the pictures the couples were even hugging, watching a sunset.

Yes. Take our vacations and romance will be in your life. Your wife will faun on you the way she did before you got married…and you haven’t seen a hint of since.

Fat chance of that, mused Al.

But, this was the propaganda being portrayed.

Over to the right of the reception desk, behind a gold braided rope, was THE CAR. Al had to admit this one was different.

Usually the timeshare companies would offer a Jeep Cherokee or a Toyota 4-Runner. Sometimes, for the more sport-minded that leaned a little more to the open road than the off-road, a Ford Mustang Convertible would be displayed. Once, he remembered, a company actually had a Mercedes Benz 600SL. They obviously marketed a much higher clientele. Sure enough their prices were higher as well.

But here, Al was taken back a bit. These prices must be astronomical, he thought.

There before him was a Lamborghini in all its glory. He had, from childhood, always loved the style and lines of this particular make. He called it, an erection on wheels. It was metallic silver in color, with a tan interior made of the highest quality leather. The windows were tinted amber allowing the driver to see with less ambient light. The wheels were more to the orange than amber. It was incredible. He’d never seen one like it. A million dollar vehicle, if it was a penny.

This company must have delusions of grandeur, ridiculously high prices, or simply never awarded the car.

He imagined the latter to be the case.

He was, for obvious reasons, aware of the law requiring all Sweepstake promotions to give away all offered gifts at least once a year. But, he was also aware how legally any company could get around that bit of political handholding.

Wasn’t it amazing, Al reflected, how easily the questioning public could be pacified by laws they are told by the lawmakers are put there for the protection of the consumer and in truth simply give the corporations a more insidious way to suck that same public of more of their life’s earnings than before. It’s a false sense of security. If put to the test by a not-so gullible individual with his ever hungry piranha of an attorney, it would prove to be as flimsy and transparent as the paper on which it was written.

Not exactly the same but close enough for Al to use as a corollary, was a recent ruling against a chemical corporation for illegally dumping toxic waste. The law makes it clear you can’t do it. But the company did anyway in spite of the law.

Why shouldn’t they? To dispose of the waste legally cost the company one and a half million dollars a day. The fine for illegally dumping it, causing disease and sometimes death, was three hundred thousand dollars –- total.

Trick question, thought Al. What would you do if you were a company that cared more about money than people, which was obviously the case?

But, back to the machine. Al had a hard time thinking of it as a car. This wasn’t a car. This was a finely tuned, magnificent piece of mechanical artistry.

He just knew there was a little hand under the dashboard that gently stroked your leg when you drove it.

God! he thought. It’s beautiful.

He turned to say so to Constance and noticed that she had her nose buried in a magazine. It was impossible for her to have not noticed the vehicle? It was just a bit bigger than a breadbox.

Then he remembered…he was the passionate one in the marriage. She never got truly excited about anything. Plus, her family could buy one of these to be used as an in-town run-a-bout, a slight whim, nothing really exciting here.

The thought sickened him. No wonder the spoiled rich always seem so bored. They’re boring!!!!

He focused back on the task at hand and walked up to the receptionist to sign in. The girl behind the counter, who had been sitting quietly watching him look at the Lamborghini, smiled and said, Good evening, Mr. Jackson. Was your drive in pleasant?

He hadn’t handed her the appointment confirmation he’d received in the mail and was a bit taken back by her calling him by name. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her before. How did you know I’m Al Jackson? he asked, not being one to have unanswered questions plague him for very long.

You have an appointment at 7:30, which it now is, she replied pleasantly.

I know. But, I’m sure others do too.

No, sir. Just you.

This was different.

Just me? Isn’t this a Timeshare sales presentation?

Oh. Yes, sir, she continued never losing the pleasant grin. It certainly is.

Aren’t we going to be sitting in a large noisy room with a lot of other people and loud music?

No, sir. You’re not. The presentations are private.

Private?

Yes, sir. Private. You’re representative will be here shortly. I’ve notified him of your arrival. Would you like to sit in the car? I could see that you liked it.

Taking a quick glance at Constance to determine if she elected to be involved in this conversation, and seeing she didn’t, he returned his attention to the receptionist.

What isn’t there to like? Lamborghini’s have been my favorite dream-car since I was a kid. May I get in?

Of course. I said you could. We knew it would appeal to you.

His mind, focused on the car, was only slightly thrown off by the comment. You knew it would appeal—?

Interrupting his question, the receptionist said, The door is unlocked. Give it a try.

More interested in the car than his question, he walked over and opened the car door. Sliding in, he had the distinct feeling he was inserting himself into the cockpit of a jet fighter rather than sitting behind the steering wheel of a car.

The receptionist walked over and was standing next to him as he reveled in the moment. Al once again glanced at Constance. He knew she wouldn’t be jealous of the receptionist. It wasn’t that the girl was unattractive. She was beautiful. In fact, she was a knockout. Al knew Constance wouldn’t even stop to consider a working girl a threat. She would think of her as being beneath her, and one didn’t waste time on those whose job was to serve.

True, jealousy is for the insecure, but Constance’s lack had nothing to do with security. It stemmed, rather, from simply not caring.

Oh well, Al thought. Such is the way of my marriage. No caring. No passion. No nothing.

Sometimes he wondered why he was even in it. He didn’t give a damn about her money. He made enough. He simply believed in his vows and the commitment of marriage.

Wouldn’t Mrs. Jackson like to take a closer look? The receptionist’s question broke his line of thought.

No. She likes to own things. But it’s the owning she likes, not the wanting.

So you don’t always agree on everything? the receptionist asked.

Al thought her question was getting a little personal. But then again, so what? She was probably getting information to pass on to the salesman so he had more ammunition for the sale. It would take more than that to get him to buy something.

Who does agree on everything? he asked in response, then fell back on a joke he often used.

Marriage is wonderful. It makes life seem so much longer.

The receptionist squatted down so she was at the same height as Al. A sense of humor as well as attractive. A very desirable combination.

Al couldn’t believe his ears. This gorgeous hunk of womanhood, a good fifteen to twenty years younger, was coming on to him. And right there in front of Constance! Talk about uncomfortable. Only way out was to make light of the situation. Oh well, he said. We all have our crosses to bear. Excuse me. He got out of the car and went over to the chair next to his wife and sat down. He was human and women had always had an unfair advantage. An advantage he didn’t feel like dealing with at this time.

The receptionist gave him a huge smile and walked back over to her place behind the counter.

Al swore, as she did, she opened her mouth and slowly ran her tongue over her lips and upper teeth in a manner intended to get a specific reaction. Plus when she walked, her right foot would cross in front of the left a little more than normal, causing her well-shaped derriere to swing a little more in her very short mini-skirt.

Al thought, This just isn’t fair. He glanced at Constance and was relieved to see she hadn’t noticed anything. Her nose never lifted up from the magazine.

It wasn’t that he would fool around. He never had. But right now he had a problem. With his sex life being so incredibly active, he thought sarcastically, and his every need constantly fulfilled, his natural chemistry had kicked in.

As he sat there, he prayed that the salesman would take just a couple of more minutes to show up. Getting up right then might be less than desirable. He had to concentrate on something else.

He quickly picked up a magazine.

Victoria’s Secret

That would definitely not do the trick, so he put it down and grabbed a Money magazine. Opening to any page, he started reading.

He hadn’t consumed more than a couple of sentences when the very welcomed sense of relaxation began. Al was glad to know that the South would rise again, but there was a time and place for everything and this was neither.

He glanced up at the receptionist. She was sitting behind the counter attending to one thing or another while constantly looking up at him and smiling.

Was her smile a little broader than before? Al thought he saw her laugh a quiet, little laugh. The kind we all do when we realize something funny and don’t care to share our lightness with others. Could she have known?

No. Impossible. Al might have had a problem, but it was a small problem at best. No way she could have known.

Then again, women do seem to sense these things without any outward evidence. Al had been aware for years that women were far more conscious of how they truly affected men than the other way around.

Men only thought they knew how women reacted to them. In truth, no man knew.

I guess Constance was right. We’re idiots and we’re doomed, Al thought to himself. Men spend their entire life convinced that they can affect the thought processes of the fairer sex. If the truth were known, no woman is affected in any way she doesn’t choose to be and even then only if there is a benefit to her.

As a woman walks by she is manipulating the male. Stand back sometime and watch people. If an attractive woman walks through an airport waiting area, don’t look at her. Look at the men. They will watch her and admire that which they are watching. The more seductively she is dressed, the more heads will turn.

It isn’t done consciously. It is pure instinct and no man has control over it. Even gay men turn their heads and watch. Of course, they are probably admiring her ensemble and the cut of her blouse, but they look, nevertheless.

Now, contrast that with a young, attractive, physically fit man walking through the same waiting room. Watch the women.

No heads turn at all.

Change that virile young man into a middle aged, slightly overweight, balding man who couldn’t normally attract houseflies. However, throw in his wearing a two thousand dollar suit, getting out of a Lamborghini or a limo, surround him with an entourage of assistants hanging off of his every word, make him a man of obvious success and money, and every woman in the place will zero in on him like he was the last chance for the human race and it was up to her to see that it happens.

Al thought to himself that in all honest you couldn’t blame anyone or ridicule either reaction. Oh, he supposed if you had to blame someone, you could blame God. Both actions were natural.

He knew that when all was said and done, man, as a race, is basically an animal. With this as a given, compare the male and female reactions in the animal kingdom: It is simply a natural instinct for the male of the species to be attracted to the younger, more enticing female. Why wouldn’t a male prefer a younger female? The younger one is more attractive. She is the one who will propagate the species, not the older one. The female’s every move, and every hormone is bent on drawing in the male, for the sole purpose of mating.

When this is accomplished, some species keep the male around to watch over, protect, and provide for the female and her young. Other species, like the praying mantis, use the male as a source of immediate nourishment. She eats him while he is still in the process of copulating.

The idiot male will do anything to be with the female. They will challenge other, bigger males, where in some cases they get the crap beat out of them. In others, they are killed. This provides that the strongest mates create a stronger lineage.

Survival of the Fittest.

Man has evolved somewhat. Al admitted to himself it wasn’t a lot. Now he is a thinking creature, not just a mass of reacting hormones.

Right!

Man is still an animal (ask any woman) while women are the ones who have become thinking.

Or have they?

In our modern world outside the cave, a woman doesn’t couple with the man-beast who grunts the loudest. She checks his bank account and potential to provide.

Well? The human race doesn’t need the strongest that can lift a rock anymore. We now have invented machines that do it for us.

Women seem to be attracted to intelligence. No one is talking about the high school debutante, who hasn’t got the foresight of a pea. Rather, consider the post-pubescent female, virile, ripe, willing and able. She wants intelligence, power, money, protection from the ills of society, and she will do anything to get it.

Subsequently, the powerful, successful, rich, corporate magnet will sit there like a drooling ape, totally at the mercy of his animal hormones completely manipulated and controlled by the attractive female, whether or not she can logically come up with what two numbers add up to two.

Women protest this line of thinking.

So what?

Al knew the truth was the truth and all the protesting in the world couldn’t and wouldn’t change a thing.

Men were doomed and he knew it.

His reverie was broken by a new voice.

Al? Constance? spoke the approaching man. As he held out his hand to shake Al’s, while tipping his head in a modern rendition of a bow to Constance, he introduced himself. I’m John. I’ll be your representative this evening. I trust your drive in was uneventful?

Yes. Thank you, replied Al, standing and returning the handshake.

John turned to the receptionist. Have Al and Constance been given an opportunity to take a close look at the car?

The receptionist replied, Yes, sir. Al seemed to take a special interest in it, as well as other things he has seen here in the waiting area.

Oh God, Al thought quietly to himself. She did know. Damn female radar.

So. Al, broke in John refocusing Al’s thinking processes. You like the car? Are you familiar with the Lamborghini?

Only from afar. In truth, it has been my dream car from childhood. And, I’m not working under any illusion that it won’t remain my unrealized dream after the conclusion of this evening. Al made this remark to let this salesman know that he was aware of their little games and they could simply save their breath. It wasn’t going to work.

Never breaking his pleasant expression, John countered with a slight laughter in his voice, Odds are, you’re probably right. But, life is made of fantasies and dreams. Without them it would be pretty boring. Don’t you think?

Momentarily flashing on the fact that all of his dreams and fantasies had been long since squashed out of him, and realizing that his life was boring while not wanting to divulge the fact to this guy giving him another tool to consummate the sale, Al noncommittally replied, I suppose.

Well, continued John taking a slight step back and gesturing with his hands that they should follow. Let’s see if we can’t make some of those dreams into realities.

Don’t bet on it, stated Al as matter-of-fact as possible without being unduly rude.

John stopped in his tracks and turned around from the direction in which he was walking to face Al. His facial expression was still pleasant but his eyes were fixed and determined. Oh, he said with total conviction. I already have. Then he turned and kept walking.

Chapter 2

THE THREE PROCEEDED DOWN A long hallway. At the very end two large wooden doors opened into a lush private office the equal of which Al had never before seen. It was an office as denoted by the desk, but that was where the similarity ended. Al’s breath was literally taken away.

The desk was a Henredon. Al recognized it immediately as he had coveted one a few years back and never forgot it. But they were too expensive for his budget, so he’d learned to live without it. It was beautiful. The style was simple and classic. No side drawers for files. It was a writing desk containing one drawer in the middle. The workmanship was incredible. Polished mahogany with inlaid dark red leather held by golden stitching created a writing surface that was comfortable and demanded that one didn’t cover its beauty with masses of papers. The four legs curved to the floor capped at their base with golden tiger’s paws and intersected the base of the desk with ornate golden tops reminiscent of Corinthian pillars.

The top held a small vase containing one red rose, a Leblanc pen set, and a model wooden biplane from the barnstormer era of flight history. That was it. No papers. No phones. No junk.

Al thought how unlike it was to his desk at work. Years had passed since he had even seen its top. Papers were piled and files came and went constantly.

This desk was simply never used, he concluded. It was an ornament, a very expensive ornament.

Behind it was a plush red leather chair—also unlike any Al had ever seen. It wasn’t the hard leather most often used, but rather a soft pliable skin more like the kind used for kid gloves. The chair screamed out, Please! Sit in me.

The desk and chair were placed in front of a wall, most of which could not be seen. It was a bookshelf. No, the wall did not have a bookshelf in front of it. It was a bookshelf, and it contained titles most collectors can only dream of.

Al was an avid reader and he enjoyed science fiction the most. So, of course, his eyes would zero in on those titles immediately.

Oh sure, the collection contained the classics, A Tale of Two Cities, Moby Dick, an entire section of Charles Dickens, etc. But, these are normally found in good collections, which sadly, were only there to impress others.

This collection had, and was placed in the position of honor—right behind the desk—the complete works of H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, the first science fiction novel-Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clark, William Shatner, Michael Crichton, Fredrick Pohl, D.C. Fontana, just to name a few, and all in hard bound.

It caught Al’s attention because he knew some of the titles had never been printed hardbound. How did John come by these?

As was his typical way, Al asked. How did you get these titles in hard cover? To my knowledge, they were only printed paper-back.

Quite right, replied John. I had them made, all first editions. Most are autographed to me by the author. Quite a collection, isn’t it? I’m proud to say I’ve read every book, at least once.

Al knew this guy was doing a bit of exaggerating, but he didn’t comment on it. First off, a first edition is in its very nature the first published edition. If a book was never published hardbound, then any copy could not be a first edition. Plus, some of these authors had been dead and dust before this guy was even a dirty thought in his father’s mind. How could they be autographed to him? Autographed, yes. Any collector can come up with these. But not personally autographed.

Perhaps he only meant the contemporary writers.

As far as reading them all, he would have had to start when he was two. There weren’t just a couple of volumes. The wall was a good twenty feet across and fifteen feet tall, and as stated before, it was solid book.

Al instantly did the math. If the surface of the wall was 300 square feet, which translates into 43,200 square inches, and the average book has a binding one to two inches across, using the average of 1.5 inches, and eight inches high, equaling twelve square inches, by dividing the plane of the wall by the plane of the books it comes out to 3,700 books. Subtracting 15% for the space taken up by shelves, and the allowance for the variance in height of each book, that still leaves 3,145 books.

Because he had other things to do beside read, it usually took Al about two to three weeks to get through the average novel considering the only time he can devote to this particular pleasure was when lying in bed, nothing else to do, or sitting on the can.

Using these figures, if he never swayed from this average and never missed a beat, it would only take him between one hundred thirty and two hundred years to get through this library -- once.

Yep! Al thought. Just a slight bit of exaggeration going on here.

But aloud he replied, "Really? Wow! That is a collection, not to mention the reading accomplishment. You’re to be both congratulated and envied."

It’s nothing, really, commented John. We all have our eccentricities.

Quietly Al responded to himself, Yeah! And yours is flinging the proverbial buffalo chips. Big mistake, fella. You just gave up the ghost. You’re full of it. Now I can relax because I know everything you say from here on out will be lies as well. Nice try. And it probably works on most of your suckers. This attorney might have been born on a Friday, it just didn’t happen to be last Friday.

Al found himself a little disappointed. So far, he had been pleasantly surprised. This timeshare marketing had been different, refreshing. But now he saw that it was the same; layer on top of layer of bat-guano.

Oh well. He still thought the office was beautiful.

What caught his eye beside the desk and book collection was the wall opposite the desk. He had concluded that the collection was probably not real, but rather surface fakes, like the kind used on a movie set in Hollywood. He bet that if he walked up to the shelf and tried to remove a book he couldn’t. It wasn’t real, and before this evening was concluded he would prove his theory.

The wall was incredible. Corner to corner and ceiling to floor, it was a projection screen of some kind. On it was a lush tropical island seascape complete with palm trees curving up into a crystal sky spotted with fluffy cumulus clouds gently blowing in the ocean breeze. The sound was perfect and subtle, as though you were really there. The trees were laden with coconuts precariously hanging over the virgin sand where seemingly no human foot had ever disturbed its purity.

At the base of the tree line where the sand ended, grass gave protection to the small creatures of the isle. As Al stared a small mongoose darted out of the greenery to examine something out on the sand. Its footprints made the only marks on an otherwise smooth finish.

Al laughed. He had always found the mongoose fascinating and this one just struck him funny. His admiration for this particular species undoubtedly came from his childhood when he took a particular fancy to Rudyard Kipling’s Rikki Tikki Tavi. He also liked their playfulness.

Of all the creatures that inhabit this insignificant Class-M planet as it lazily orbits its yellow sun on an outer spiral arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, he found the mongoose, otters, and ferrets the most fun to watch.

They were living entities that were never burdened with the toils of life, or at least, it never seemed so. The image of an otter, floating on its back as it cracked open a clam using the rock it had placed on its stomach, was not one of anxiety or panic.

Two ferrets, or two mongoose for that matter, would find it impossible, utterly beyond they’re capability, to go from one place to another without one of them playfully jumping on the other creating a rolling ball of fur as they wrestled with each other. It was as though they could not allow a moment to pass without stopping to play.

There was no challenge in their play. No ‘I’m going to prove I’m better than you’. No competition. Just play, plain and simple.

Al wondered, as he watched the image of the mongoose, if man had ever been like that. When, in his evolutionary process, did he lose play? What a loss.

This film projected somehow on the wall was incredible. Just as he laughed, Al thought the cameraman must have made some noise or moved suddenly as the mongoose stopped and raised up on its back haunches to see what it was that disturbed its reverie. Back down on all fours it scampered a few step toward Al, then rose up again.

Taking one paw, moving it up and down seemingly scratching the air, it cocked its head to one side and emitted a playful chatter. It looked like the thing was waving at Al, saying, Hi! Welcome to my beach. Can I get you a tasty morsel? A crab, or perhaps a bit of snake? I have some back at my dwelling. Would you care to join me?

Al lost it. He laughed openly and loud. He realized he had really been engrossed in the scene as he found himself waving back.

Remembering where he was, he turned to look at Constance and John. Constance, as usual, was scowling in disapproval. John was smiling. This same reaction probably happened all the time.

As Al removed his focus from the projection to take in the rest of the room, the mongoose got back down on all fours and scampered back into the grass.

Al said, Bye!

It happened in an instant. So fast he wasn’t really sure it happened at all. But, Al swore the mongoose turned its head and gave a little chirp in response.

Naaa! he thought to himself, then turned to finish his examination of the office.

The carpet was plush and expensive. The other two walls were hung with beautiful works of art. One painting was surrealistic in nature. The prospective and depth was almost three-dimensional. A view of a planet, unlike any Al had ever seen, was depicted hanging among a myriad of stars by the invisible strings of space. The planet seemed alive.

Everyone has seen the photos of the Earth from space; the blue of her oceans, the greens and browns of her continents, the whites of her polar regions as well as her ever moving clouds. Magnificent. Beautiful.

Seeing it you just know there is a God.

And