Walt Trizna's Blog, page 36

YOU KNOW YOU’RE GETTING OLD WHEN:

You remember when psychics were once called fortune tellers.

UKRAINE

                                                         INSPIRED

With the passing of the bill to provide aid to Ukraine I am inspired to know:

That congress CAN accomplish something.

Some members have finally developed spines.

Putin is shitting his pants.

A SHORT STORY PUBLISHED

                               A SHORT STORY PUBLISHED

My short story, The Universe in Balance, can now be found on Corner Store Magazine.

Go to the home page, then to Ostarablot, March 21, volume 9 issue 4.

This was one of the first short stories I wrote nearly twenty years ago. It is quite different than the original. I eventually realized that the story’s premise was totally wrong resulting in a series of rewrites. The fact that it now appears in print is an indication that I finally got it right.

PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XVII

                          PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XVII

I now knew the source of our plumbing problems. I also had a sickening feeling I’d discovered what happened to Marcus Worthy and to our cat Molly.  I was also sure our plumber Dave was no longer servicing anyone’s plumbing.  We took Jack to the hospital.  He was in pretty bad shape, but the doctors say he should recover.

I next notified the police and got a contractor who immediately sealed all the drains so we would not have a return visit.  Finally, we had the old septic tank removed and a new one installed.  Once all this work was accomplished, we checked out of the hotel where we were staying and returned home.

A week went by, and we got a call from Jack’s doctor saying Jack was well enough to be released from the hospital.  Laura and I left to pick him up.  Jack was still quite sore, but ready to go home.  On our ride back, I explained about the lab I had found and the source of the animal that had attacked him.  I don’t know if he really understood, but he listened intently.  As we pulled into his driveway, Jack looked over at our property.  He took a moment to inspect the new look of our landscape then said; “I see the hill of dirt where they dug up your septic tank.  But what the hell is that tall fence doing around the pond, with all those danger signs?”

“Oh, you mean that six-foot electrified fence around the pond?” I answered.  “You see Jack,” I continue, “the septic old tank, when they dug it up – was empty.”

Hope you enjoyed this rather long short story.

There are many more short stories and posts set to arrive.

And all for FREE.

You will never be pestered by any type of ad or request for money.

PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XVI

                      PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XVI

 I ran to the master bath and saw a sight that defied description.  There was Jack, wrapped in a huge set of tentacles.  On the floor lay an animal with a body almost four feet across.  The body was shaped like a star and from beneath the star, in its center, issued some sort of organ.  Suddenly, what little I knew of marine biology came back to me.  The way starfish digest their food flashed into my mind.  They express their stomach from within their body, capture their prey and bring the digested meal back inside.  On my bathroom floor was one of Worthy’s experiments – in the excited state. 

I ran back to the kitchen to grab the meat cleaver, at the same time yelling to Laura, “Get Robin and both of you get out of the house!” 

“What’s going on upstairs, and what was that scream?” she asked.

“Do what I say, damn it, there’s no time to explain,” I shouted.  Laura fled the kitchen in search of Robin. I ran back to the master bath and started hacking at the tentacles.  The star-jellyfish pulled its stomach back in and the tentacles slowly released Jack.  He had passed out, probably from the combination of being constricted and the hundreds of stings he had endured.  I pulled him out of the bathroom and while doing so witnessed an amazing spectacle.  With its remaining tentacles, the creature pulled itself back up into the sink.  Then, it went from the starfish state to a sink full of foul-smelling jellyfish ooze, and in a few minutes silently slid back down the drain.

                     

PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XV

                         PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XV

I left the barn, and with the shadows lengthening, returned to the house for a shower and dinner.  Laura was busy in the kitchen; I asked her if she has a minute and we sat over coffee and discussed my discovery.  I spent a restless night but finally fell asleep and awoke to the smell of breakfast cooking.  I headed downstairs and found Laura in the kitchen.

Greeting my lovely wife I said, “Beautiful morning, isn’t it honey?”    

Laura half turned and replied, “Think again honey!  All of the sinks are blocked.”  And as she stepped away I could see the sink was full of dirty water.  Can you do something?” she pleaded.

“Let me see if Jack has a snake,” I shouted over my shoulder as I ran out of the house.

Jack was in the garden as usual, and I had to shout a few times before I got his attention.  “Do you have a snake?” I asked.

“Of course I’ve got a rake,” came his reply.

“No, a snake, a plumber’s snake,” I shouted.

“No need to shout, got one of those too,” came his answer.  “Tell you what, let me find it and I’ll be right over and clear up your plumbing problems once and for all.”

I watched him go into his house and then ran back to mine.  By now Laura was bailing the sink out into buckets.  The smell was terrible.  I had just thought – better you than me, when Laura shouted, “Go upstairs and check the master bedroom!”

Halfway up the stairs I was met by the same sickening smell that filled the kitchen.  As I neared the bathroom, I saw an ever-increasing puddle coming from beneath the bathroom door.  I glanced out the bedroom window and saw Jack walking over with his snake.  I thought of shouting for him to hurry but knew it would be useless.

Jack stopped at the kitchen and put the snake down the drain, met with some resistance, then the drain cleared, and the water flowed down and away.  He then went to each of the sinks in the house and met with the same success.  As he started to work in the master bathroom, I mentioned that this was where the problem started and seemed to always return.

“I’ll just ream out the drain with the full length of the snake.  Why don’t you run along and do something useful,” Jack quipped. 

I went to the kitchen to make sure Laura was okay, and that the problem hadn’t returned.  Then I entered my office to try to get a little work done before breakfast.

I was at work for no more than fifteen minutes, when I heard a blood-curdling scream; Jack was in big trouble.

PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XIV

          PLUMBING PROBLMS: PART XIV

What did he do with the animals once the experiment was terminated?  Worthy only studied the animals when they were young and then projected the potency and yield of the adult animal.  He did not keep the animals until they were mature.  I thought of how I disposed of dead goldfish when I was a kid, why there were supposedly alligators roaming the sewers of New York.  My thoughts return to my plumbing problems.  Thank God this house is nowhere near the ocean, and that it has its own septic system.  But there must be a connection between the septic system and the pond.  That’s perhaps why Jack had seen fluorescence in the pond and that is how the creatures managed to survive.

I continued to read Worthy’s lab book, absorbed with the progress of his experiments.  Then I came to the final few pages and photos.  Worthy had found a substance made by jellyfish of interest.  He also found a similar molecule in starfish.  What followed were the technical details of creating a new creature.  The data was accompanied by two photos, which I found both curious and interesting.  One photo showed just a mass of tissue with the caption, resting state.  The other photo was that of a jellyfish, but the likes of which no one had seen before.  The body of the jellyfish had a star shape, rigid with tentacles jutting from the star tips.  This photo had the caption, excitation state.  His notes went on to explain the two states.  Resting state was when the animal was not being stimulated by the presence of food.  Excitation state was when the animal was hunting or sensing danger.  It appeared that the animal was covered with millions of tiny scales.  The scales were separated from each other during the resting state, but when the animal was excited, the scales interlocked giving the animal a solid body with flowing tentacles.

Before I knew it, I had spent hours going over his notes and photos.   Going up the stairs, I took one more look around the lab and thought of the joy Worthy must have experienced in his subterranean laboratory, free from the inhibitions of corporate society.

PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XIII

                    PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XIII

The beginning of the lab book dealt with his theories, the purpose of his research.  His interest was in natural products, but he wasn’t interested in the usual source that was exploited, plant life; he was interested in the natural peptides found in marine life.  His work took yet another turn.  Once a molecule was discovered in a plant demonstrating its promise in fighting a disease, chemists would take over and refine the molecule, increasing its potency until they had a drug.  Worthy’s method was quite different.  When he found a peptide in an animal that he felt he could improve upon, he searched for another animal that produced a similar peptide that would complement the actions of the first.  The product, he hoped, would be more potent than the sum of the two individual peptides.  He would isolate the DNA from the two animals, then cut and splice the DNA, inject the DNA into a DNA depleted sea urchin egg and await the results.  If he met with any success, the result would be an animal the likes of which the world had never seen.  He would also make an insert that would allow the animal to have an increased response to growth hormone – the bigger the animal the more the peptide to harvest.  Worthy then created the correct environment for the cells to start multiplying.  Soon an embryo was formed, and then the animal itself.

Along with his notes were Polaroid photos of the resulting animals.  One experiment combining two creatures of interest was the union of the genes of a hammerhead shark and a catfish found in Florida. 

Hammerhead shark, I thought to myself.  I recalled the description of the fish Jack had found.  “Had a head shaped like a pipe,” he said.  A hammerhead shark, in an advanced state of decomposition, with its body twisted might look like an animal with a head shaped like a pipe.  One aspect of this combination really frightened me, and that was the curious properties of the catfish part of this animal.  This catfish was able, when the water in which it lived began drying up, to walk short distances using its fins.  I recalled when ‘JAWS’ was first published and then made into a movie; people thought the ocean wasn’t safe.  If this critter got loose, not only would the water not be safe, but the shore as well.  I continued to read the lab book and look at the pictures of bizarre animals.  Many entries finished with the comment – results unsatisfactory, experiment terminated.

PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XII

                                    PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XII

I started down the stairs.  This may have been a root cellar or storm shelter at one time, but Marcus Worthy had converted the huge room into a laboratory.  The room was about forty by forty feet, almost the size of the barn above.  I gazed at equipment I was familiar with, equipment I used myself as a scientist.  I recognized a PCR machine for copying DNA, and set-ups for gels used to analyze DNA and RNA.  There was also the usual lab paraphernalia, centrifuges, a microscope and various types of glassware and lab books.  In the corner stood a liquid nitrogen storage cylinder.  It was a well-organized lab.  Opening the door to the refrigerator, I saw kits for isolating DNA and RNA along with the probes necessary to do the work.  There were probes for sharks and various other types of marine life – jellyfish, starfish, and other invertebrates.  Apparently Worthy decided to do some scientific studies on his own.  He had the money and I guess just wanted to go where his mind took him.

Studying the lab and its supplies more closely something started going off in the far reaches of my mind.  I tried to recall the first conversation I had with Jack.  How he found that strange fish in the field, its description totally puzzled me.  I reached for what I hoped would clear up all the mysteries this place possessed; I opened Worthy’s lab book.  Marcus Worthy’s notes were meticulous.

PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XI

                             PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XI

It was fall now: time to harvest what our garden has produced, cut and split firewood and get ready for the winter, our first winter in the country.  I wanted to get as much firewood as I could in the barn.  But before I stacked wood in the barn, I would have to clear the place out, a job I’d been avoiding for as long as possible.  Unfortunately, there was no avoiding it any longer. 

It was a beautiful crisp Saturday afternoon, and time to tackle the barn.  I began by picking up the clutter on the floor, old tools and the usual barn debris.  Off to one corner I saw a stack of large wooden boxes.  I assumed they would be too heavy for me to move on my own, so I cleaned up around them.  Soon, I had the barn in reasonable shape.

After a few days, I returned to finish the cleaning.  All that remained was that stack of wooden crates to move and I would be done.  I still thought I’ll need help moving them, but I figured I’d give one a try.  Much to my surprise, the boxes were empty and extremely light.  Why would anyone store a bunch of old wooden boxes in a barn, wasting all that space?  Once the boxes were removed, all that remained to be done was sweep out the hay that littered the barn floor.  I began with the area I had just cleared when I noticed a large metal ring set in the floor.  A little more sweeping revealed a large trap door.  Must be some sort of root cellar or storm shelter I speculated, could be a fallout shelter.  The house was extremely old, dating back to the nineteenth century, but the barn was more recent, maybe only fifty of sixty years old.  Pulling open the door, I saw a set of concrete stairs descending into the darkness.  Spying a light switch on the wall, I flipped it up, and saw banks of fluorescent lights coming on below.