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Gate Keeper
29 July 2009 20:30There’s a glittering fishing lure hanging in space near the entrance to the warpgate. It’s a small ship powering down so that it can power up. A strong repulsor field is necessary to grease a ship’s way through the throat of the wormhole.
“Like shit through a goose”, Mr. Young would say. He was my fifth-grade science teacher. One of his eyes pointed off into the great unknown at all times and he turned bright red at the slightest provocation. I think he loved teaching but hated us kids. All of my science teachers were much crazier than my other professors. I wonder why that is.
The fishing-lure ship’s main lights are going out, row after row. Space plays with scale sometimes. At first, I thought the fishing lure was a two-person shuttle. I can see now that it’s a huge starship and that every row of lights is an entire deck. The generators at each tip are glowing blue now as they warm up. Their aft engines cool from orange to ochre to black in the icy ink of space. There’s an entire colour shift along the ship as the repulsor whines into life. It loops around the ship like a skipping rope once, twice, three times and then it’s going too fast to count.
Mr. Young would demonstrate with the tiny warp gates he had set up on either end of his desk at the front of the class. Powered by a small battery, it could shunt objects as big as a house-key through the tiny hoops. He was missing a finger tip from a time where he got a little too close to the mouth-end of the gate. I wish I’d been in class that day. That must have been exciting.
The light barrier is broken with an arcing snap and the skipping rope is now in several places at once around the ship. It’s an impenetrable barrier with a weakness at either end but the wormhole never touches the prow or the stern. The huge pleasure cruiser is the yolk at the center of the repulsor field’s egg. It’s a cat’s eye hanging in space. It’s ready. The all-clear is given and I rustle up onto my feet and over to the gate controls.
When I came to school near the end of fifth grade one day, we had a substitute for Mr. Young. His name was Mr. Hendricks. He had glasses and tame hair. He was boring. Mr. Young never came back. A year later, I found out that his heart had given out and he had died. I don’t know why they never told us students. Trying to protect us, I guess, that close to the end of the year and all. I missed him a lot. Him and his missing fingertip and his red face and uncontainable joy for teaching science.
The warpgate opens. It’s a mouth to forever. A swirling Christmas present of un-knowable laws. It’s a rip in the shape of an intenstine. It’s a tear in the t-shirt of the universe. There are colours in that massive hoop construction that don’t exist. As warpgate operators, we have to take tests to make sure that seeing those colours won’t make us go insane. Luckily, I’m not very imaginative or curious. I passed. I have my hand on the lever that will push the ship down the throat of the wormhole.
I wish I’d paid more attention in Mr. Young’s class. He seemed like a nice guy. The science he was trying to teach us might have gotten me a better job than throwing this switch ever few days. This whole warpgate is automated for the most part. I’m one of sixteen crew members. We’re all far apart in this giant structure so we don’t see each other much and that suits us all just fine. It’s why we were chosen.
I’m only here so that the next of kin will have someone to sue instead of the company just in case, knock on titanium, Something Goes Wrong. That hasn’t happened yet.
There’s a flash and the universe turns itself into a catcher’s mitt for a second. The ship arrives at it’s destination on the other side of the wormhole just a tiny bit before it leaves this side. I see the ghost image shudder around itself before it disappears entirely. It was a pretty impressive sight the first few times but not anymore.
Sighing, I check to clock to see when the next scheduled departure is. Nineteen hours. I decide to go back to my computer and check my hopelessly out-of-date databanks for the names of all my science teachers to see if I can find their pictures.
tags
“Like shit through a goose”, Mr. Young would say. He was my fifth-grade science teacher. One of his eyes pointed off into the great unknown at all times and he turned bright red at the slightest provocation. I think he loved teaching but hated us kids. All of my science teachers were much crazier than my other professors. I wonder why that is.
The fishing-lure ship’s main lights are going out, row after row. Space plays with scale sometimes. At first, I thought the fishing lure was a two-person shuttle. I can see now that it’s a huge starship and that every row of lights is an entire deck. The generators at each tip are glowing blue now as they warm up. Their aft engines cool from orange to ochre to black in the icy ink of space. There’s an entire colour shift along the ship as the repulsor whines into life. It loops around the ship like a skipping rope once, twice, three times and then it’s going too fast to count.
Mr. Young would demonstrate with the tiny warp gates he had set up on either end of his desk at the front of the class. Powered by a small battery, it could shunt objects as big as a house-key through the tiny hoops. He was missing a finger tip from a time where he got a little too close to the mouth-end of the gate. I wish I’d been in class that day. That must have been exciting.
The light barrier is broken with an arcing snap and the skipping rope is now in several places at once around the ship. It’s an impenetrable barrier with a weakness at either end but the wormhole never touches the prow or the stern. The huge pleasure cruiser is the yolk at the center of the repulsor field’s egg. It’s a cat’s eye hanging in space. It’s ready. The all-clear is given and I rustle up onto my feet and over to the gate controls.
When I came to school near the end of fifth grade one day, we had a substitute for Mr. Young. His name was Mr. Hendricks. He had glasses and tame hair. He was boring. Mr. Young never came back. A year later, I found out that his heart had given out and he had died. I don’t know why they never told us students. Trying to protect us, I guess, that close to the end of the year and all. I missed him a lot. Him and his missing fingertip and his red face and uncontainable joy for teaching science.
The warpgate opens. It’s a mouth to forever. A swirling Christmas present of un-knowable laws. It’s a rip in the shape of an intenstine. It’s a tear in the t-shirt of the universe. There are colours in that massive hoop construction that don’t exist. As warpgate operators, we have to take tests to make sure that seeing those colours won’t make us go insane. Luckily, I’m not very imaginative or curious. I passed. I have my hand on the lever that will push the ship down the throat of the wormhole.
I wish I’d paid more attention in Mr. Young’s class. He seemed like a nice guy. The science he was trying to teach us might have gotten me a better job than throwing this switch ever few days. This whole warpgate is automated for the most part. I’m one of sixteen crew members. We’re all far apart in this giant structure so we don’t see each other much and that suits us all just fine. It’s why we were chosen.
I’m only here so that the next of kin will have someone to sue instead of the company just in case, knock on titanium, Something Goes Wrong. That hasn’t happened yet.
There’s a flash and the universe turns itself into a catcher’s mitt for a second. The ship arrives at it’s destination on the other side of the wormhole just a tiny bit before it leaves this side. I see the ghost image shudder around itself before it disappears entirely. It was a pretty impressive sight the first few times but not anymore.
Sighing, I check to clock to see when the next scheduled departure is. Nineteen hours. I decide to go back to my computer and check my hopelessly out-of-date databanks for the names of all my science teachers to see if I can find their pictures.
tags
