Invaders, Rowlf's Journey "A Journey to the Center of the Earth Story" Sometimes it's hard to know the real monster, even when you're one.

Invaders
Rowlf's Journey
"A Journey to the Center of the Earth Story"

By John Pirillo

Maybe it was the never ending trek into the bowels of the earth that caught Rowlf's fancy, or perhaps it was these strange creatures who demonstrated such extremes of emotion. Emotion was not new to Rowlf. All his people had it, but jut not so extreme! His people were not nomadic by nature. Once they found a cavern or large protected area with access to water and food, they seldom left that area to adventure about.

There were some, like Rowlf though, who while tolerated, and put a stress and strain on the society they were born to, because their minds were curious. Always looking to explore one more thing. Learn one more thing.

Such had Rowlf been as an egg and such was he now as a fully grown Therm...The description his people gave themselves. It meant hard shell, soft heart.

Of course not all Therms were as reasonable as Rowlf's had been. He still remembered when their quarters were invaded by a variation of Therm that used strange weapons that sent beams of light, blistering the shells of loved ones and friends. Rowlf had been but little over an egg in size at that time, so he had been hidden in the back, protected by the Warrior Mothers, those who gave up egg lying to protect the young. More often than not, they also laid eggs, but they never had the privilege of raising and nourishing them as a mother might. Their sights were upon the overall communal protection.

They had thrown off that invasion, not because of superior weapons, but because they cared for each other. None were afraid to die for the other. And many had perished. It take many long periods of egg laying to even begin to get back into the numbers of population they had before the battle with the evil Therms.

Evil is a loosely translated word for the emotion they felt from the invading Therms. No one of Rowlf's tribe would ever have said that word. They didn't believe that creatures were made of one thing or another, but a blend. They believed in shades of gray, not black.

Rowlf had awakened the night of the invasion with a frightening vision. He saw these short white skinned creatures invading their home with weapons that could pierce their armored skin and explode them from the inside out. It had terrified him.

His mother had tried to calm him down and it might have worked, had not the invasion begun shortly thereafter. Rowlf remembered little of those moments in retrospect, because his mind was still forming. Therm brains aren't fully developed in the second area of the head until they reach ten terms. Which are about twenty earth years as measured by surface dwellers.

Rowlf had scrambled on his legs and arms like an insect. Children did that. Not adults, though they might in a warlike situation, which this was, though few at the time could believe such was happening.

Rowlf had been taken the long path, not the short, for the invaders were camped at the edge of the short path and were using their strange weapons to pick off anyone that came within range. Which in the beginning had been pretty much dozens of Therms who couldn't believe that the strange lights would harm them, let alone the invaders. It was unheard of for Therm to harm Therm. That illusion was quickly broken by the fight that ensued.

Hundreds died in the first fatal hours, before the invading Therms ran out of light throwing weapons. Their beams of light might have killed Therms, but not always on the first blow or the next. Even dying, Therms took a long time to realize they were dead and kept on fighting until their brains were fried, or their multiple hearts broke.

Rowlf's heart broke at least twice during the battle, for his mother and father were among the first to fall as they strove to protect him and the other children from the invading Therms. It had been their goal to rob the colony of the babies. Later, after they had scattered the foe, and captured a few. The majority they swiftly killed once their light weapons failed.

They learned about the goals of the invaders from one especially tall one. He had been captured and kept from biting his own body in two by four of their own. He had been interrogated and found out to have led roughly a thousand of the Therm invaders. Only fifty of them survived. He had told them that there were more waiting to invade and with even more powerful weapons, but none believed him. The cells in his eyes lied. They glowed the wrong way.

The Therms of the colony knew bitterness and sorrow for the first time in a long time. They did not feel for vengeance, so they allowed the captured leader to choose his method of death. The leader had chosen the Molten Falls. A series of volcanic rivers that burned up anything that touched them within the blink of multiple eyes.

He had marched to the edge of the precipice he would jump from, then turned back and faced his captors. "You have won this war. But there will be another. And it will be led by the White Ones."

And then he had given them a brittle smile. The only kind their sort could make and fallen backwards from the edge of the precipice, laughing.

Rowlf remembered breaking free from the others and running to the edge of the precipice. He should have seen the leader burning in the molten lava, but he saw nothing for a long time, but then he saw this mottled shell of color moving sideways about halfway down the precipice. It stopped a moment, and then a face looked up at him. One he would never forget.

Rowlf woke up with a nerve grinding roar of anger, startling both Russ...a Midwestern man with a quirky sense of humor and his friend, Everett, a British genius with an even stranger sense of humor. Rowlf never thought much about what brought their humor to life. Had he done so, he might have realized it was their way of coping with all the death they'd seen and near deaths of them during their journey beneath the earth.

"Bloody Hell! Rowlf!" Everett hollered at him. "A man's trying to sleep here!"

Russ grimaced. "Where?"

Everett glared at him. "Ha-ha. Very funny."

Everett, finally coming back to his senses from the very deep sleep of exhaustion, arose and began stretching his limbs, just in case. Rowlf had proven more than once to be a valuable friend and very much like a good watchdog when it came to danger. He clasped his stone spear and surveyed the pocket of tunnel they had put themselves in so nothing could attack from behind. It was the same bland rock with a few clutches of glow moss on its sides and ceiling. Outside their pocket the cavern was lit by thousands of glow moss, which gave it an eerie look. One that was never comfortable to wake to, because while intensely beautiful, it could also be incredibly dangerous because of the monsters that hid in the depths.

"Nothing wrong I can see." Everett muttered finally, settling down beside Russ, who hadn't bothered to open his eyes even.

Russ yawned. "Rowlfie had a bad dream."

Rowlf, who had levered himself up from the floor into a position of defense nodded. "Dweam!"

Everett. "Oh."

Rowlf looked at the two men. "Was dweam?"

Russ finally opened his eyes when Everett refused to speak.

He gave Everett a glare, and then patted his friend Rowlf on his armored shoulder. "Pal, it has to do with seeing things that aren't there."

"Rowlf swaw!"

Everett tensed again. "Saw what?"

"Dwanger!"

That brought Russ fully awake. He grabbed his own stone spear and sat with his back to the next to Everett, but opposite Rowlf. "What kind of danger?"

Rowlf considered that a long time, then shrugged. "Wusual."

Everett and Russ both groaned.

They had no water or food and had stopped to rest and sleep because their bodies were groaning for both. But now they realized they had to get on with it again. They struggled to their feet and Rowlf followed them from the pocket cave.

The path before them split and ran in two directions. North and South.

Everett made a fist. Russ did also.

"Paper."

"Scissors."

"Rock."

"Hammer."

"The Big One." Everett said with a satisfied look on his face.

Russ groaned. "Cheater."

"You saying it don't beat the others?"

Russ just glared at him, and then went the right path.

"Aren't you forgetting something, old man?"

Russ stopped and turned around. "What?"

"This way." Everett smiled, stepping on the left path. "I won."

"Yeah. By cheating." Russ grumbled, following Everett anyway.

Rowlf watched them a moment with amusement.

"Whomens!" He said in a voice that sounded like garbled metal clashing together.

He followed his human friends, contemplating what they would find this day. He was as hungry, if not more so, as them. He didn't tell them, but usually he ate much more. But he hadn't the hearts to take all the food. That wouldn't be Therman of him.

Russ got lucky first. He found a patch pod of moss eggs. The humans didn't know why eggs were always nested in the patch pods, but they were. It was almost like an Easter egg hunt, finding the spoils that way. But they didn't complain, nor did they flinch when they broke the egg shells and sucked them dry.

Only Rowlf would not eat them. He knew where the eggs really came from. And while the eggs would not grow up to be Therms, they were sentient and he respected them anyway. He did not interfere because he also knew these eggs had been lost or abandoned. The owners, he could tell by is olfactory nerves located along his jaw and nostril areas, were long gone and would not care at this point. Eggs if not kept warm...died.

So sad for the loss of the life, but happy for his friends. He watched them fill their empty stomachs. Finally, after they offered him for the last time a share of the eggs, they greedily split those up and sucked them down as well.

"Hey!" Everett called out, stumbling to his feet. He belched, and then made his way to a new pocket cave. "Anyone for a nap?"

He started to enter, and then paused. "Russ. Look at this."

Russ was so groggy from sleep loss and a full stomach, he had almost missed it.

They both stood and stared at the strange marking on the entrance to the pocket cave. It looked like a series of stars with long arms.

"Here too."

Everett nodded. "It's almost like they're some kind of territorial marking. Except that they're incredibly detailed and well done."

Russ glanced around the cavern a long time, and then sighed. "Worry about whom later. I'm beat."

He and Everett found the best spots they could to be comfortable and instantly knocked out. But Rowlf did not sleep. Rowlf stood guard. He considered his friends for a long time. Such a strange group of creatures. And then he remembered his dream. The leader screaming about the coming of the White Ones. He shook his head, making a rattling, raspy sound which disturbed Russ and Everett's sleep for a moment, then they settled back to sleep.

He didn't tell them he had also seen the symbol before. And he just might know what it meant. It was for wiser ones than him to go there. And since there were no wiser ones with them...Rowlf sighed in a gravely tone, and then locked his joints so he didn't have to worry about falling. He preferred to sleep in that position. It gave any likely invaders second thoughts about attacking, but also gave him the advantage of striking first. Therms were extremely light sleepers, even if in the middle of what had they called his experience..."Dweams?"

New burst of colorful fractal flames in this new gallery!

 

I'm tired. So here's a new batch! Yeah right! He's tired. That little old flame factory machine.

Enjoy!

John

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Fighting Nazi Monsters to return for find his lost love! "Storming the Future" A Rocketman Story by John Pirillo.

Storming the Future
"A Rocketman Story"
by John Pirillo

Harry stood before the Rocketman suit, which was hanging by its arms in a clench of metal clamps that held it at a perpetual 12 inches above the pressed concrete flooring that covered the interior Swiss base of the Resistance. Behind it hung a second version, and behind that a third and so on through about ten versions. Each version was smaller than the last, but still far too big.

He then looked at the smaller jump suit, as he called it, that was slung casually over  a work bench where Einstein and Tesla were clucking like mother hens over their new babies. It looked similar to the old movie serial he had seen in the States before he had been transferred to the Allied front in Britain It was,  however, powered differently, and modular. Each part of it could be replaced by simply removing the entanglement field that kept it in place.

The entanglement field was something that Edison had come up with on a whim. He had been researching electromagnetics in hopes of finding a way to automate the building of his cars...and now the war effort's weaponized vehicles more rapidly, with them being easier to fix when things blew up. Which was often. It was based on some law that Harry didn't have the slightest comprehension of. Science was not his forte. Flying was. He frowned, but flying a ticking bomb had never been on his list of flying objects when he woke up in the future, or in the past and was drafted into the war on the Nazi regime.

"Don't worry, Harry, they'll work it out." Jet told him from the side.

Harry, startled from his reverie, and turned to eye his friend. "It's getting worse."

Jet put a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder. "I know, brother. Believe me I know. I'm the one that has to listen to you scream at night, remember?"

Harry sighed, then dug his hands into his uniform pockets, letting his frustration drain away. Jet was right. He always was. It just fretted at him that he had so little control over what was happening.

Al, perked up, probably feeling Harry's upset and nodded to Tesla, who gave Harry a wave, then returned to probing the jump suit with a tiny tool that had headlights on it. Al brushed his hands off, wiped them carefully on a dirty cloth, then on a cleaner one, and came over, all smiles and perky. "Harry, my boy. So good to see you. And so bright and early."

Jet gave Al a cockeyed grin. "As if anyone could sleep in this hole in the wall anyway."

Al clapped a hand on Jet's right arm. "Always shooting from the hip."

"Just be glad you're not the one in my sights."

Al laughed, patted Jet's arm, then gave Harry a more serious look. "You had them again?"

"Yes."

"How bad?"

=========================================================================

Harry adjusted his flight attitude and zoomed in a descending arc towards the newly reconstructed Eiffel Tower. It was late at night and only a few guards stood there, but they were Sturmgiganten. The giant, genetically enhanced soldiers cooked in  Hitler's massive genetics labs buried somewhere in  Asia and out of the reach of the Resistance.

For now. Harry thought grimly. One day. He let the thought subside as he dropped lightly onto the semi-lit platform at the top of the tower. It was similar to the one he remembered from his youth, when his father and mother had taken him to Paris for part of an European vacation. Those had been happier days. For Harry. But they had ended badly for his parents. His mother had contracted cancer and went through what seemed like an endless series of tests and remedies, which left her weaker and weaker over time.

A stomping of a boot.

Harry snapped out of the past to the present. This present. Not the one he had been born to. Which was in late twenties. Not this one which was a thousand years later and the hollow shell of the world it had once been. Its peoples decimated by a constantly warring faction of Nazi soldiers and Eastern Global warriors and weapons. The Second World War had ended with nuclear strikes at all the major western capitals of the world. The Eastern Block and Nazi Germany had divided the planet into two zones. They lived an uneasy peace between them, which was enforced locally by zombie soldiers...citizens whose minds were preempted by electronics...and Sturmgiganten...huge genetically modified soldiers that stood over eight feet tall, had muscles as thick as tree trunks and fists the size of hams. No, it wasn't a pretty future, or past as he remembered it.

Harry slid in a sliding curve with his left foot and the other one jacked up and caught the Nazi giant in its right kneecap. It grunted in pain. They had no voice like normal, but spoke in a kind of apelike grunt. Harry knew the one on the opposite side would be coming fast. For some reason these creatures always knew what was going on with the other. Knowing that, he swiftly followed the kneecap kick with a double punch into the giant's privates. The giant grunted even louder, the pain of its crushed testicles...thank God it had something normal...being so excruciating that it doubled over. That brought its chin into Harry's reach. He slammed his right elbow into its throat, then shoved with all his strength and sent the giant tumbling against the railing, where its giant yellowed eyes glared at him angrily, promising hideous torture. It wasn't going to happen. Harry drop kicked the giant in its stomach and it flew head over heels from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Its grunts grew louder and louder with pain as it fell into the large metal struts holding up the massive tower.

Harry never got to listen to it strike the bottom, because even if he could have heard it, the second giant was on him. He spun around powered his suit and flew like an arrow of destruction into its chest, sending it falling back against the railing. Harry didn't wait to struggle with it. He clasped one of its arms, gave his suit a power surge and lifted it off the platform, dangled it over the ground below and let go. He didn't listen for any grunts. He had a mission to do. He lit on the platform again and went to the strange device that topped the tower. It was, according to the Resistance informants, a death ray, that once activated. That one and a score of them about the city. That once activated, would create a lethal dome of blazing energies which no living thing could survive.

His mission. It's not going to happen.

He set the charges he carried in his side flaps, planted the timers carefully on all of them, set them for sixty seconds and leaped from the tower.

He flipped on his jump suit and waited for the rockets to kick in.

And waited.

And...

=========================================================================

Harry's face was flushed and sweating by the time he had completed the retelling of his dream. Jet looked at him, his jaw hanging down. "God, Harry, I never knew. Man!"

Al took out his pipe, which he always did when he was considering something weighty, or something that bothered him deeply, proceeded to tamp tobacco in it, then light it. He took several puffs, then said. "We're going to find out what is causing these time loops, Harry. I promise it."

He said nothing more, but he gave Harry a quick side hug, then stepped back to rejoin Tesla, who looked up then, saw Harry's face, gave him a worried look, then returned to his work, with Al whispering words to him so Harry and Jet couldn't over listen.

Harry slumped against the work table behind him and wiped the sweat from his face. He felt like crap. Probably looked like it too.

He and Jet went to the small eating area that was allowed the base, took out two mugs and filled them steaming black java. They plugged the liquid with dabs of sugar and milk, then sat down, eyeing the activity going on, even at such an early hour.

A platoon of Resistance Forces were training in one corner, their Squad Leader, hollering at them to stay trim, stay in line, be quiet, get down and all the other nasty things those guys did to save the lives of those in their command.

"It's like I'm unhinged in time, Jet." Harry finally said, lifting his eyes from the activity in the base, to Jet's.

Jet nodded. He waited for Harry to go on.

"I never feel the death, but it always ends up that way. Why do I only remember the deaths?"

Jet laughed. "God's keeping you humble, man. God knows you need it, Flyboy."

Harry laughed despite the sadness and dismay he felt. He took a long sip of the hot java, the coffee streaming down his throat and igniting the nerve endings in his body, bringing some semblance of reality back to him again as he got further away from the dream.

Then he remembered. "Jet, it's been happening to me when I fly the suit."

"Yeah, man, we knew that."

"Yes, but it only happens after I've been in battle."

Harry jumped to his feet and dashed off.

Jet set his coffee down. "Now, I know why they call him Rocketman. He never keeps his feet on the ground long."

Jet sighed, threw the rest of his drink down his throat, then ran after Harry.

=========================================================================

Harry struggled into the Rocketman suit while the Techs helped him lockdown. It was like squeezing a soft tomato through the top of a wine bottle. It had to get inside without bursting. At least that's what it always felt like to Harry at first. He eyed the jump suit and wished it were stable. He needed the flexibility it provided. No use living in the past, he thought, then stuffed his arms into the arms of the Rocketman suit and waited as he was closed inside.

Jet tapped on his faceplate. "Reading me, Harry?"

"Only too loud and clear, pal."

"Good, next time you run out on me like that I'm charging for the time."

Harry laughed.

The Techs about them laughed too.

Harry and Jet were base favorites. Their humor and stamina were well known, as was their battle readiness.

Harry activated the controls in his suit with his chin, tongue and nose, then dropped lightly to the floor as the overhead clamps released him. He turned towards the rising hanger door. He twisted slightly to look at Jet. "Make sure Al and Tes are monitoring my flight this time. It's important."

"Not telling me why, pal!" Jet exclaimed in aggravation.

Harry smiled through the face plate. "No time. Just tell them. Please!"

"Gotcha!" Jet dashed off.

Harry turned the Rocketman suit towards the opening to the Swiss air, then ignited his suit's rockets. He kept them tuned low so the radiations didn't backwash into the crew scrambling to clear his path, then punched them into full gear when he reached the opening. They could never leave it open more than a few seconds for fear of the Nazi Fume Fighters catching wind of them. So far they'd been lucky.

Harry launched into the clear blue skies of the  Swiss Alps, Lake Lucerne below him as he angled towards the clouds. He checked his radar and spotted a Fume Fighter. They had won that name from the ugly black smoke they emitted as they tore through the atmosphere, leaving a smoking trail of black fumes and stench.

"Closing." Harry said into his communicator.

"Gotcha, Harry." Jet said.

"Be careful, Harry." Al told him.

"My middle name." Harry chuckled. "Except when it's he who drops like a rock."

Jet whooped with laughter. "That was good, brother. Really good."

"Here goes!" Harry warned, then accelerated the suit, closing in rapidly on the Fume Fighter which was high above. Obviously, the pilot had his attention forward, instead of below, for Harry was able to launch a series of rockets into its exhausts before the pilot awoke to the Rocketman behind him.

Harry didn't give him a chance to warn anyone, not even himself. He launched a deadly one, two whammy salvo of rockets which sent the Nazi pilot back to Valhalla.

Harry circled the area he had struck the Fume Fighter in, waiting for his theory to be proved. Nothing happened.

"Well, Harry?" Al finally said, his voice sounding a bit worried.

"Nothing. Not a damned thing." Harry groaned.

Realizing he had just shot down his own theory, he headed back to base. He shot through the entrance, backed off on his rockets, then lit like a dandelion on his favorite spot. He waited impatiently for the Techs to unlatch him, then thanked them, and raced to the back where Al, Tesla and Jet were standing next to the jump suit, which was still in pieces.

Al gave Harry a searching look.

"I thought the weapons somehow triggered the response that threw me between timelines."

Al nodded and turned to Tesla, who had been jotting notes in a small tablet in his hands. "I think you're wrong, Harry. "

He held the tablet up. Harry squinted at the mathematical symbols on it.

"What's it mean?"

But the words that left his lips seemed hollow, empty, as if he were in some kind of deep echo chamber. He jerked his eyes towards Jet, who was reaching for him and then...

=========================================================================

Harry was falling and falling. The rockets had failed. He would die if he couldn't fire up the engines. Finally, he did the only thing he had left for him to do, if he hoped to survive. He jettisoned himself.

He watched the jump suit smash into a building and explode, sending scores of storm troopers from their quarters to see what was going on.

And there Harry was, dangling from a parachute high above their heads, but plainly visible if any of them looked up.

=========================================================================

"Harry!" Jet screamed.

Harry shook his head. Jet shook his body.

Harry snapped out of the vision he had been experiencing and realized he wasn't falling anymore.

Tesla wrote more notes in his tablet. "You were gone for..." He looked at his pocket watch. "Three seconds."

Harry let out a whoop of joy. He hugged Jet. "It worked. It worked!"

Al smiled comfortingly. "Yes. It did. Now..." He sighed, as he and Tesla exchanged glances. "We have to figure out why you are disobeying every law of physics known to man."

Jet patted Harry on his back. "That's because he's Rocketman."

Everyone laughed, except for Harry, who secretly wandered if someday he would be able to use the new knowledge and return. Return to the woman he had left behind. He had loved and was stricken from his life forever by a quirk in time. 

Japanese fun filled kung fu fighting ultraman, giant flying man and monster destroyer. Ultraman mebius gaiden armor of darkness

If fractal flames were style conscious, they'd be considered flashy dressers because they are so incredibly colorful. New slideshow!

 

I think I've created several thousand of these things by now. How can someone get so obssesed with such things of beauty. There is no asking why, just fractal flame or die! :)

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They awoke at death's door on a strange planet that was once their own. Crash "A Jules and Wells Story" By John Pirillo

 
Crash
"A Jules and Wells Story"
By John Pirillo

A great writer, H.G. Wells, once wrote that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King. But that is only half the story. Here is a tale of love and friendship caught at the gates of hell itself with two authors whose adventures in real life far exceeded their tales of wonder and fantasy on the written page. Jules Verne and H.G. Wells!


Wells lifted himself on his elbow, his face strained with great pain. Jules lay to the left of him, flung from his chair by the violence of their crash. Wells didn't actually see that. At that particular moment, he couldn't see a thing. Not a blasted thing, bloody hell and all! He thought to himself, ready to snap off a turtle's head, so angry he was at the co-ordinates he had fed Jules to put into the Strings navigator.

The forces hadn't been kind to either him or his best friend, he suspected. By the smell...acrid and bitter...he realized that the Master of the World was at best a wounded animal.

"Jules."

A moan.

"What happened?"

Another moan. This time louder and with more pain in the sound of it.

"My legs are crushed."

"Oh Jules. I'm so sorry." Wells croaked, his voice cracking as his emotions surfaced. They were both probably about to die.

"Mon Frere?"

"It is I."

"I can't lift the weight from my legs. I am flat on my belly and it is behind me."

"I..."

He felt Jules, rather than saw him strain to see Wells. "You're hurt!"

"My eyes."

Jules moaned again, but not because of his own pain. "Oh, dear friend, what a fine pair we are."

"The finest."

"I cannot walk. You cannot see."

"Think, Jules, what happened?"

"The String Space rejected our drive and flung us from it."

"That is impossible."

"Qui, but..."

Wells hurt in every inch of his body, but nothing appeared to be broken. He sat up, inch by inch, by drawing himself upwards with the strength of his hands upon the command console, which was obviously broken in many places. It was a miracle that either of them had survived the crash, let alone with such small physical loss.

He laughed.

"I am glad you find this amusing."

Wells grinned, and then felt blood spattering his lips. He wiped it away. "Not at you, or us, but this whole bloody thing. Here we are in the middle of...bloody hell, I don't know, maybe God does, but here we are. Two cocky young rogues who have had more than their share of close calls and managed to squeeze by."

"Not this time, Mon Frere. Not this time."

Wells heard the agony in Jules voice. "Keep speaking. I will see..." He laughed.

"You're laughing again."

"I see nothing."

Jules was silent. He mourned for his friend, but he could do nothing. He strained to break free from the weight on his legs, but could not turn or move. "Then do the best you can."

"Do I not always?"

Again, Jules was silent. Wells dragged himself across the debris between them carefully. Without eyes he had no idea what might be in his path and didn't need to skewer him on some bit of compromising metal by accident. His knee struck something hard. "Jules?"

"That would be my head."

Wells laughed again.

"I am growing tired of this laughter."

"And I." He laughed some more.

Jules laughed as well.

"We are such a sorry pair of fools." Jules finally was able to gasp out between laughs.

"Yes, we are." And Wells burst into a new line of laughter.

Finally, they both settled down, exhausted by their physical pains and the fear of the unknown. Wells used his right hand to probe along Jules body, and finally stopped when he felt something hard and unyielding. "It is the arms panel."

"But it has my legs." Jules remarked.

That sparked another burst of laughter from the two friends. When that subsided, Wells managed to maneuver himself closer to Jules and position himself so he could wrap both arms about the panel. "If I remember correctly, we had bolts holding it in place. It weighs about five hundred pounds."

"Yes. And we both nearly got broken by lifting it."

"Yes. And my wife thanks you for the design."

"As does mine, it gave her relief for almost a month."

They both burst into laughter again.

Finally, Wells stopped. "Do not move, I am going to try lifting it, then shoving it to the right."

"Oh trust me, Wells, move I shall not."

Wells almost laughed again, but when Jules let out another involuntary gasp of pain, the laughter fled from his lips. He strained with all his might, but the panel would not move.

"Well, that is good and proper." Wells finally croaked, gasping for breath.

"Yes. You can't see. I can't walk."

"I have not given up." Wells stubbornly replied.

He slid past Jules. "Can you see the closet door? Is it open or shut?"

"I cannot turn my head that far."

"No problem. I shall see to it myself."

They broke into laughter again, and then subsided as Wells slid to the position of the closet. He felt along the floor for its base, felt its edges, then slowly got to his feet, even though every muscle in his body screamed with pain.

Something made a loud whooshing sound in the back of the Master of the World.

"Wells, I suspect we have another problem brewing."

"As always, you are right, my friend." Wells responded, even as his hand sought the latch of the closet and sprung it. Another miracle. The compartment was whole. He felt the rod within it. He had stored it there from their last trip. It was some kind of artifact they had found on an abandoned version of Earth. Neither could figure out its function, though it generated an enormous amount of chronic energy.

"Have it." Wells grunted, as he allowed himself to slide down to the floor again.

He began to sniff the air. "Smoke."

"Mon Frere, where there is smoke..."

"...There is fire. I know. I know. I'm hurrying as fast as I can."

Well managed to get over to Jules again. He felt around and found a slightly rounded slab of metal that was near the panel fallen on Jules' legs. He slid the rod between the slab and the panel. "I don't know if this is positioned properly. You must let me know if anything is going wrong."

"Trust me; I will be the first to let you know."

They were both silent a long moment, then Wells slowly applied pressure to the rod, which was acting as a fulcrum to moving the panel. He heard grinding and screeching. Was the panel mixed with some other fallen object?

"Ow!" Jules cried out.

Wells started to lower the rod.

"Non, non, Mon Frere. The pain is a good one. Keep on. I can feel my legs loosening."

Wells grunted as he applied more pressure.

There was an explosion in the rear of the ship and the blast wave knocked him to the left. His rod flew from his hands to the right.

Jules cried out as if he had been crushed to death.

Wells recovered himself and scrambled to help Jules, but instead of finding Jules' body, he discovered only a mass of metal. "Jules!" He cried out.

He felt two hands clasp his shoulders and slowly raise him to his feet. "Mon frère." Jules whispered to his dear friend.

They gave each other a long hug, and then Jules turned Wells. "We must hurry while there is an exit from the vessel. As Jules walked, he stumbled on the rod. He started to kick it aside, then thought better of it and stooped to pick it up with his free hand, allowing Wells to lean against him as he did so. Finally, he was able to stand again.

"What is it?"

Jules eyed the rod. "Either our salvation or our destruction."

Another explosion. They were both slammed into a wall.

Jules hurriedly recovered and grabbed Wells to his feet. He used the rod to help push fallen and crushed debris from their path, and then reached the emergency exit. He kicked the control box at the base of it. It had three boxes like such. One at the top. One at the middle and one at the bottom in case someone was unable to reach the other two.

The door made a loud groaning sound and didn't want to open.

"Oh damn it to hell anyway!"

Wells kicked with all his might. His aim was true. The door made a loud protesting sound, and then swung open.

Jules practically flung them to the ground as the Master of the World gave one loud rumbling sound after another. "We must run!"

"I will trust your eyes."

"That is good, for I trust little else."

"Then lean on me, and guide us both."

Jules did so.

Wells bolstered his friend as they both ran from the debris of the broken ship. Its beautiful golden lines of radiant beauty were marred by debris from its crash and from the fires that now raged throughout it. They had gotten about twenty yards away, when a wave of explosions rippled the rough the vessel, sending debris showering them and the land about them.

Jules threw himself and Wells down and covered Wells with his body.

The explosions stopped.

Jules rolled off and gasped for air.

Wells did the same, not because he was relieved, but because Jules had crushed the air from his lungs.

"Safe." Wells said.

"But for how long?"

Jules surveyed the land they had crashed into. It was late. The sun barely peeked above the craggy mountains that ringed in their crash site. On the horizon was a thick forest. It seemed a livable place. And then he saw something move in the forest. It moved temporarily into the light. It was enormous. At least ninety feet in height. Jules could see very long teen in its mouth.

Wells stomach grumbled. "I can't believe I'm hungry at a time like this."

"You're not the only one." Jules whispered.

"Why are you whispering, blast it?" Wells almost hollered.

Jules clapped a hand over his friend's face. "Something is coming our way."

"Something very, very big."

Wells clasped the rod that lay between him and Jules. "Well, worst comes to worse, we can always use this as a club."

"I don't think that's going to work." Jules said as the huge beast stomped towards them, closing the distance with huge steps that covered yards of ground at a time.

"What's wrong?"

Jules let go of Wells. "From the kettle into the fire."

Wells stiffened. "Death yet again?"

"Yes, Mom Frere, it would appear that the Old Man enjoys playing with us."

Wells drew himself to his feet, leaning on the rod. He reached a hand out and Jules took it, and then rose to stand beside him.

"I think I could run now." Jules remarked in a forced casual voice.

"I think our time of running has come to an end."

Jules looked at his friend. "Perhaps so."

Jules grabbed the rod from his friend's grasp, causing him to fall to the ground.

"What kind of madness is this, Jules?"

"The only kind that has ever been our friend." Jules uttered back, his face resolute and fixed. He turned to face the beast, which now towered over the both of them.

"I shall not go out without a fight." Wells uttered, forcing himself to his feet.

Jules nodded. "Then as always."

"We live together. We..."

"Die together."

Jules raised the rod over his shoulder to strike the beast in the face as it opened its massive jaws, revealing row after row of jagged teeth. Its gigantic bloodshot eyes swirled with delight as it eyed its easy snack.

"For love." Jules hollered, and then swung the rod.

It struck the beast in its nose as it reached for them.

The creature gave the two of them a stunned look for a moment, and then it raised itself up on its hind feet and prepared to crush them with its front.

"Farewell, dear friend." Jules said calmly and with great clarity.

"Forever friends." Wells agreed, taking Jules free hand.

"Forever." Jules repeated.

Then as the beast's massive front feet dropped to crush them, the rod in Jules' hand lit up brighter than the sun for a moment. Both men were seared by its intensity. The beast cried out in fear, but continued to press downwards. When its feet had crushed into the bright light, it felt nothing but soil.

It lowered its great head to look at the spot it had crushed. Nothing was there, not even the stick that had struck it. The beast groaned angrily, then turned to retreat back to its forest, where maybe another meal could be found.

=========================================================================

Jules stood in the cockpit of the Master of the World, the rod raised before his face. Wells lay at his feet next to the navigation controls.

"Mon Frere. I think dinner has been avoided."

"Where are we? This sounds like..."

"The Master of the World." Jules finished for him.

Jules hurried his friend to the small infirmary in the back and even though he was unsettled still by the abrupt transition to an intact vessel, devoid of any human life, he didn't forget his friend's injuries. He carefully cleaned his friend's face, then his eyes, using medicated solutions to cleanse the cuts and bruises. He had laid his friend down on the small cot there and sat beside him. He placed a strip of thick gauze over his friend's eyes.

Wells fell into a deep sleep, which Jules would not disturb. He only rose the once to check on their navigation headings, then satisfied with them, returned to keep watch on his friend. It must have been many hours later that Wells groaned and rubbed at the gauze over his eyes.

"What the blasted, bloody hell have you put over my vision? I can't see a thing! Bloody hell, Jules!"

Jules pressed a hand to the gauze to stop him from removing it. "It's for your own good, Mon Frere. Your eyes were hurt badly."

"Like bloody hell they were!" Wells said, and then swept Jules' hand and the gauze from his face. He looked at Jules, who gave him a startled look, then smiled. "I can see you are quite disturbed."

"You would be too if you had been through what I had with you." Jules countered.

They both broke into peals of laughter.

When they had landed the Master of the World, their wives were waiting for them. They rushed to them and held them close a long time, saying nothing. Both women were used to such conduct from their men and knew when they were ready; they would speak of what had happened, though they couldn't tell a thing by looking at the state of the Master of the World, which was perfect and untouched by flame or explosion.

That night both men gave their women more attention than usual, but neither wife complained. They loved their men, even though they often times were gone in their explorations. Love is a most bounteous and generous energy, and the love between these four was enough to satisfy them all.

But as both men went to sleep that night, comfortable and warm against their wives, the one thought they had in common was...What had triggered the rod to activate? What had caused the erasure of time itself?

Even though that thought weighed heavily upon both men for a time, they could not hold it for long, for weariness now claimed its own and they descended into the blissful ignorance of sleep and dreams well earned.

More fractal flames to get you into a good frame of mind. Soft curving lights. Colors that melt into the brain and leave it warm and fuzzy.

"Dying to the Light" Find crimes enough, love enough, adventure enough, monsters & action enough to satisfy any appetite you might present.

Dying to the Light

"A Sherlock Holmes Collection"

From the Baker Street Universe

By John Pirillo

A collection of short stories from The Baker Street Universe that center around the exciting, sometimes paranormal, or science fiction adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. Whether they're investigating monsters or human monsters, there's always adventure, romance, excitement and danger in a parallel Victorian London where authors and their creations are all alive at the same time.

Purchase now at Amazon and Smashwords for 99cents!

Dying to the Light is homage to Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, but because the stories take place in an alternate reality, the Baker Street Universe, you will also find many other fun and exciting characters. Some are famous from literature. Some are the author's own. But all are fun to write and imagine. Oh, and did you know there's monster. Lots of monsters.

Enjoy this collection of fabulous stories for only 99cents at both Amazon and Smashwords!

You will find crimes enough, love enough, adventure enough, and action enough to satisfy any appetite you might present. But most of all you'll have a joy ride of pleasure with hours of reading about some of the most exciting people of all: Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson.

Hours of reading pleasure can be yours for just 99 cents at Amazon and Smashwords!

Battling a Genie, a horde of demons...that could be a bit tough. The Magic Lamp. A Cartoon Story by John Pirillo

The Magic Lamp
"A Cartoon Story"
by John Pirillo

"Stuff it!" Johnnie told the Genie hovering over Aladdin's lamp. "I am not going to build you a duplex inside that ugly thing."

The Genie waxed his long mustaches with wet fingers he had just dipped in wax and gave Johnnie a loathsome smile. "It's the deal. Either you build me the duplex, or I vanish your girlfriends for the next thousand years!"

"You can't do that!" He screamed at the ugly being who pretended to be a nice man. "You're friggin' crazy!"

"No. I am just...me."

The Genie vanished into his ugly lamp and it shook around a bit.

Cartoon glanced at Johnnie, where he stood in the antiquities store, still stunned by what had happened. "You can't let him do that to Koomay and Laurie."

"I won't, but I just don't get it. I never touched any comic book with a genie in it. Never. Not in this life or any other!" He exclaimed angrily, his face flushed with anger.

"Maybe." Cartoon said soothingly. "But are you absolutely certain?"

Johnnie gave her a scrutinizing look. "You're up to something."

"Always." She said with the glint of a smile on her lips.

"From the day you tricked me in to rescuing you as a young girl in that high rise fire, you've been manipulating me."

"True enough."

He started to explode again, and then caught himself. "Okay. Mostly for the better, but you've never once....once explained the rules of this power I've been given."

Cartoon picked up the lamp.

"Ouch! Don't be so rough!" The Genie cried out from inside.

The Shop Owner glanced over at the two arguing, and then came over. "Is there a problem?"

He said it to Cartoon, thinking that Johnnie was abusing her. He hated abusive people. His father had been abusive to his mother and he was ready to knock anyone down if they even hinted at such. He stood over Johnnie by a good foot. He was an extremely tall man, and there was something oddly familiar about him, though he couldn't place it at the time.

"No problem. We'll take this lamp. Just a bit of a disagreement as to...how." She said with an amused look on her face.

Johnnie was stewing with anger at the way he was being manipulated, but inside of himself he knew it wasn't what it appeared to be. It never was. He just hated always being on the wrong end of the eight ball.

"Yeah. How much?"

The Shop Owner gave him a blank look.

"I said we'd take it." Johnnie said again, starting to lose his temper. He really needed to learn how to meditate. The stress was starting to really scramble his brain and his temperament.

"Take what, sir?"

Johnnie gestured to the lamp in Cartoon's hand. The Shop Owner looked that way. "She does have lovely hands, but you don't need my permission to take them."

He laughed, thinking his joke was quite amusing.

==========================================================

Johnnie slouched on the sofa, his brains scrambling to figure out what had just happened in that old store. He could clearly see the lamp. It would shake every once in awhile on the coffee table and he could even hear the Genie taking a shower. Taking a shower! Of all the ungodly things to do inside a lamp.

"I can't build a duplex." Johnnie muttered angrily to himself.

He felt a pair of arms slip around his neck, and Cartoon nuzzles his right ear. "Sure you can."

She came around and sat next to him, sliding against his right shoulder with the warmth of her glowing body. She usually dimmed the glow in public, otherwise people would wise up, or be extremely frightened, but sometimes she'd let it all  hang out, like when they were battling zombies, werewolves and vampires.

"What's really eating you?" She asked finally, after giving him a chance to say it for himself.

He slowly turned to look into her eyes. "Rules."

She sighed.

"You're stubborn, Johnnie. You know that, don't you?"

"Likewise you."

She smiled. "When I need to be."

"Rules!" He asked again, more firmly.

She got up and began pacing the small living room. "When you saved me, you allowed your genetics to blend with my own, with my universe. All the laws that is true there are now latent within you."

"You mean you can turn into any cartoon character you want?" He asked, a bit surprised at her answer.

"No." She answered sadly. "For some reason it only works one direction. You can become us, but we can never become you."

"Why do you think that is?"

"Our ancestors when they first slipped into that universe were like yours. Desperate and hunted by creatures from your worst nightmares."

"Tough life."

"Very." She answered. "We figured out a way to open a doorway between the universes. At first we were frightened when our bodies became light bodies, but then we got used to it. And as we did, we learned to blend with the other cartoon beings that dwelled within the realms."

"Superman, Batman, Daffy Duck...?"

She laughed. "No, silly. Those are your creations. Not ours. The cartoon world has rules just like your own and those who lived there before us were a kind and loving race. They never knew violence or despair. They welcomed us with open arms and hearts."

Johnnie held a hand up. "So how come every time I draw upon your world's energies everything gets so..."

"Screwed up?" She answered with a giggle.

"Yeah that too."

She gave him a somber look, her eyes piercing his own with a stare he hadn't seen before. For a moment he felt like he stood on the precipice of Eternity, everything gone around him, but the vastness of the Universe, and then that strange feeling vanished, replaced by the warmth and security of her closeness and her voice.

"We don't control Creation, anymore than you here of Earth can. Its rules align with a Higher Source."

Johnnie rolled his eyes, but accepted her words for the moment, until he could consider the better. "Well, time to get to work, I guess."

He stood up and headed for the front door.

He turned back. His face lit up. "Oh, my God! I know why I recognized that Shop Owner. He's the same man who I met as a child when my parents went shopping in his store. At the time I didn't think anything of the illustrated book he pressed into my hands. When my parents weren't listening he said. I can still hear them as clear as day, someday this will be important to you. Remember that."

At that given moment the magic lamp began to shake and smoke. Cartoon stood up and hurriedly backed away from it. Johnnie put an arm around her shoulders.

"I remember now, Cartoon. I remember."

The Genie hissed out of the lantern in a huge cloud of magical dust, each fist clenching a gigantic scimitar. "Prepare for battle!"

Johnnie turned to Cartoon. "Ain't it always the same? Teen finds cartoon, cartoon finds boy, everything becomes all crazy and there's battles and cries of despair and the hero has to save the day."

Cartoon laughed. "Come on, Hero. Afraid of a little adventure?"

"Not this time." Johnnie said, waving a hand. A gigantic scimitar shone in his left fist. His clothing turned into silk garments with a bow over his right shoulder and a loop of rope at his waist, caught in a red sash.

"Lead on, Genie!"

The Genie gave Johnnie a fierce look. "You will build my duplex!"

"Okay. Okay. If you say so. So what's the problem?"

At that same moment the front door vanished and they were staring into another world where giant demons were storming a palace. Civilians were screaming and running for their lives.

"Gotcha!" Johnnie said, and then he and Cartoon ran through the door opening and vanished into the world of the Genie.

The Genie roared behind them, and charged through like a gigantic diesel engine truck blasting its horn. It soared past Johnnie and lit into the first swarm of giant demons. "For Baghdad and the Nile! It cried.

"Ah, that's so corny!" Johnnie sighed as he and Cartoon rushed the same swarm.

Cartoon didn't have time to answer, because Johnnie had to hack at a giant demon that was about to clobber them with a mace the size of a small SUV.

Such was the life of a Comic Book Commando!

Project Shell by Blow Studios. CGI film.

Best CGI Animated Stories, collection of cute shorts.

Godzilla Cartoon. Good old Kaiju King of the Monsters is back in an animation of the third kind. Enjoy!

Star Born by Andre Norton...full novel in audio book format. Great writer. Loved everything she wrote!

Andre Norton was not a male, but a woman of great style and distinguishment. She wrote under the name of a male because in those days women were still considered barefoot baby factories only suitable to cook and do the home.

Have things changed since then!

Don't miss out on this novel.

I'll see if I can find shorter segments, but in the meanwhile, if you have about ten hours to spend drilling sci-fi of the most exciting kind into your ears. There it is!

Enjoy.

John

The Action doesn't stop! Will Spy Smasher survive to live to another hair raising act of death defying action? Chapter 3!

New Gallery. Photorealistic landscapes I created using 3D Designs. Soothing and beautiful. Fun to think about.

More of my experiments in 3D Design Landscapes. Some turned out achingly beautiful and some just pretty, but all were fun to design.

To think my first 3D work was on an old Atari Console.

Things have sure changed, haven't they?

Enjoy.

John

The Swarming Red. Story of early life of Doctor Watson John Pirillo. War is hell. He found healing could also cause pain and suffering.

Much has been written about Sherlock Holmes, the Master Detective, but little has been revealed about his wonderful partner and friend, Doctor John Watson. This was and is a situation I intend to remedy with a series of stories over time that fill in the missing parts of his life, both as a young man and later as a partner in the waiting for Sherlock.

This is the third story in my saga about young John Watson. While not steeped in as much magic and other worldly events as later stories will and might be, this one establishes his character, his desires as a humane being and gives us a glimpse of his early love life, which as any good author will tell you, has little shadows surrounding it. Shadows of change.

I hope you have as much fun getting lost in this wonderful little story, as I had in telling it. I  have the additional pleasure of seeing it quite clearly in my mind. And, if you've been following my series of interviews, perhaps a bit more. Hey?

Enjoy,

John

The Swarming Red
A John Watson Story
By John Pirillo

"John!" The urgent call of Nurse Betty Stone called.

John, his white scrubs trailing behind him as he ran, dashed into the corridor to help two orderlies with an especially large man they were trying to move onto an operating gurney. He took the blanket the man was on, stretched it onto the new gurney and pulled as they shoved. The overly weight man groaned as he dropped several inches onto the hard steel surface, his eyes fluttering madly in his skull for a moment, and then he drifted back into unconsciousness.

"How long's he been like this?"

Nurse Betty Stone ran over with a clipboard and shoved it into John's hands. "He has the blood disease."

"The Swarming Red, I believe it's called, Nurse Betty Stone."

"Yes, Doctor...I mean John."

John gave her the hint of a grin, but said nothing. His stint at the Hyde and Mary Hospital had started him off as an ordinary attendant rushing men like this on gurneys through the corridors to the emergency operating rooms, sweeping up floors, mopping bathrooms and distributing food to patients when the nurses were too busy elsewhere. It was tough, sometimes grueling work, but he never complained. He was always learning something new. He couldn't explain why, but he had a fascination with medicine, and in particular the study of how things came together. The clues that explained the why and the wherefore of wounds, whether caused by guns, knives, battering or just plain stupidity.

"No, problem, Betty."

She gave him a blush. She was about three years younger than him and came from a fine family dedicated to the Arts. Her father had been disappointed when she decided to take her artistic hand and apply it to the suffering instead of to garnering fame and fortune as her artist father, renowned throughout the Britains had. Her hair was an off blonde with hints of red in it, and her eyes were spotlights of blue that illuminated a face full of warmth and concern and right then that moment, Watson.

Watson helped the orderlies get the man into the operating room where Doctor Owens, Charles Owens, an elderly man of thirty five, finished pulling on his surgical gloves, and his nurses rolled out a tray of surgical equipment, as well as hot towels and dry ones to mop his forehead as he worked.

"Very good, John. Over here." He commanded.

John steered the gurney into the requisite spot and the orderlies left, but John remained next to the Doctor.

"Better put on a mask and gloves if you're going to help me, John." The good Doctor said with the hint of mischief in his eyes.

John didn't waste a moment. He sprinted into the clean room, tossed his scrubs, threw on fresh ones, then a mask and gloves and hurried back inside the operating room.

Doctor Owens shook his head. "This one has let it go too far this time."

"Doctor?"

Doctor Owens pointed to the man's right and left feet where they were swollen and discolored. Parts of them were showing evidence of a kind of mold. "The Swarming Red. It's advanced into the final stages."

"What does that mean?"

"John, be so good as to hand me that saw over there?"

John looked to the counter behind them and saw an array of saws. Some bloody ones lay in a solution towards the end. He noted that uneasily, and then took the one the Doctor gestured too. He gently lifted it, and then brought it to him.

"Now you must help me strap him down."

"Strap him down? But he's unconscious."

"Not for long, I dare say, poor wretch."

He gestured to Nurse Betty Stone."Give me two doses of blue and one of the red please."

"Blue and red?"

Doctor Owens looked at John. "The Blue is a distillation of opium. The red is a special drug that Count Tesla found on his expedition to the Isles of Darkness. It has the ability and tenacity of an opiate, but when used in conjunction with one, sustains its effects and amplifies it by a magnitude of ten."

"That would kill him!" Gasped John.

Doctor Owens took the syringe when Nurse Betty Stone returned with it. He tapped it and squirted it slightly to clear any air, then turned to John. "This man will die anyway...most certainly within the next hours if we don't. Believe me, John; he's going to need ten times more than this once we begin."

John didn't know what to think, but he watched as Nurse Betty Stone properly cleaned the man's feet, and then applied a salve to them.

"It'll help stem the blood flow."

"Blood flow?"

"Yes. John. I'd advise you to step back a bit. This could get messy."

Nurse Betty Stone gave John a nervous glance, and then raised a pure white sheet between her and the doctor's bodies as he reached over with the saw.

John watched in stunned silence during the next several minutes, as the man on the gurney cried out in pain, his eyes snapping open in horror as he realized what was being done."

"Two more Blue and double the Red, Nurse!"

She fled to the cabinet where the medicines were stored, plucked out two vials, got a syringe and filled it, then ran back.

Doctor Owens looked at the man who was sobbing and crying with terror and pain, his two feet severed free and laying on a separate gurney with a steel bowl and a fluid holding them floating within. "This will hurt even more, sir." He said, his eyes filled with compassion.

Nurse Betty Stone gave the doctor the syringe and he stuck it in the man's belly. The man started to cry out, and then gave the doctor a perplexed look. It hadn't really hurt at all, and then he saw the red hot iron that Nurse Betty Stone pulled from a flash oven as she gave it to the Doctor.

He looked at the man. "I just think you might make it, young man. But you must have a stiff upper lip. Do you believe in God, sir?"

The man's eyes were starting to sag closed. He shook his head no.

"Well, it doesn't hurt to now, does it?"

He applied the iron to the first leg's stump.

John would never forget the sound of that scream. And finally, it broke his resolve. He rushed from the room and threw up in the corridor. Nurses and patients looked at him and the mess. He sagged against the wall and put his hands over his face and began sobbing.

Nurse Betty Stone came out about ten minutes later, wringing her hands in worry. John was still against the wall. Still crying. She dropped beside him, put her arms around his shoulders and hugged him close, ignoring the filth of the vomit all over his front and the smell of it in her nostrils. This was a man in a kind of pain that couldn't be healed by medicine. Her own natural womanly instincts guided her in what to do next.

She pulled his head into her lap as she sat next to him and stroked his hair as he sobbed over and over. No one said a thing about this strange event occurring in the corridor. Not even Doctor Owens as he exited the operating room said anything. He just stood there, his eyes filled with sympathy and hope as he watched the love being given and the wretched soul, whose extents were tarnished and sullied by all the terrors and horrors of war. If only the two of them, Nurse Betty Stone and Doctor Owens could have seen what terrors and horrors John Watson would later face, they might have held even greater sympathy and compassion in their hearts.

Later the next morning, John awoke in a hospital bed. Nurse Betty Stone was sleeping with her head next to his chest. Her blonde hair looked like tiny waves of gold spread out before him. She was snoring lightly which brought a grin to his lips, then his hand reached out and stroked her hair, gently at first, then firmer as she looked up at him smiling.

"I love you, John Watson."

"I love you, Betty."

He drew her up towards him and their lips met.

"Ah-hem!" Doctor Owens said, as he cleared his throat from the doorway.

They both hurriedly withdrew from the near kiss and blushing, turned their faces towards the older man. He tapped a pipe bowl against his shoe, and then loosened the remains into a trash receptacle, and as they watched and waited patiently, he tamped fresh tobacco from a small bag he took from his waistcoat, and then lit it. He took several puffs, and then sat down in a chair opposite John's bed.

"John..."

"Sir...please don't fire me." John blurted out, his heart racing with fear. "I won't do that again. I swear it!"

Doctor Owens shook his head.

John felt as if his whole life were flashing before him. Betty lost all color in her face. "Please, don't do this, Doctor. He's a good man."

"Yes. I do know that, Nurse Betty Stone."

He gazed at John a long time, his eyes measuring him in many ways, and then he said. "I think it's time you got formal training."

John and Betty looked at each other in astonishment. John sat up in bed, elated. "Formal, sir?"

Doctor Owens rose from the chair and gave them both warm smiles. "Yes, I have asked the hospital to grant you whatever funds you need to attend Oxford. They will of course transfer you once you have your understudies done to the appropriate school to complete your doctorate."

Doctor Owens went to the door and closing it, smiled at them. "Now, carry on, I suspect you both have something rather...." He laughed. "...Pressing to discuss."

On that laughter he exited the room, shutting the door behind him.

John pulled Betty to him and hugged her tight. "I'm going to be a doctor! I'm going to be a doctor!"

"Yes, John." She said, brushing her fingers through his hair. "Yes, you will."

Then he pressed her gently away and looked into her eyes. "We must speak with your parents at once."

"Why is that?" She asked, uncertain as to his motives.

He smiled warmly. "I rather suspect they'd like to know what profession their future son-in-law will be practicing."

She threw herself into his arms again and they kissed.

Ah, the innocence of youth and of time. All things are always in flux, always changing. Sometimes they remain the same, untarnished or diminished by time, but sometimes. Sometimes not.  But for this moment the two sweethearts will enjoy their time of joy. And in the future, well, that will be what it will be, won't it?