PT, Repeal and Replace, A Rainbow & 16 Mytery Solved, or Is It?

Good Morning Ted and Jody:

I saw a sequence on the ABC news where a reporter was asking Members of Congress as they went to the floor vote on the Republican repeal and replace Obamacare bill if they had read the bill.  That got me to thinking.  “Dear Pestilence:  I was impressed with your rose garden celebration over the House passing your much-touted repeal and replacement of Obamacare.  However, I can’t criticize as I haven’t read it.  You should refrain from your celebration and praise until you read it. Respectfully A US Citizen” One small piece that I did get to see labeled postpartum depression as a pre-existing condition that insurance companies may use to wave issuing insurance coverage if a state so elects.  Really. Who writes these things for them? Yesterday I was willing to ask that they be forgiven for they know not what they do.  Today, not so much.

I had physical therapy yesterday morning at 7:00.  While I am normally a morning person, that is not the way to start the day for anyone.  First, it was dry when I went in and raining like the dickens when I came out. Then there is the issue of endorphins.  I never seem to get any.  Before I went I was well on the way to losing that first pound, I mentioned the other day.  After PT I am now 2 pounds away from losing it.  Go figure?  Since I do all the exercises lying down, I have yet to figure out how to stay awake while doing them.  On the plus side, I get more naps this way.

At one point late yesterday afternoon, I noticed that the sun was out and that I could hear rain on the roof.  It turned out it was raining on the west side of the house and not on the east.  I looked out to the east (where we have a solid bank of woods to prevent us from seeing trees) and caught a partial arc of a rainbow. 

I trust this finds you healthy, happy and with an abundance of rainbows.

Warmest regards, ED

016 Mystery Solved, or Is It?

Fiction in 1064 words by T. Edward Westen, 2017

Amanda White materialized in the stairwell at Police Headquarters.  She started to reach for the door leading down to Child Protective Services but thought better of it. ‘No, I had better fill in the detectives and Special Agent Fleishman first.’  So, up the stairs, she went.  When she entered the detective squad she could see the two detectives and Special Agent Fleishman huddled by the current incidents board.  Detective Philipson saw her and waved her in.

“I was just at your most recent ‘appearance,” Amanda White said.  “I know where your bodies are coming from as I was just there.”

Captain Batan quickly said, “We are all ears. Where do they come from?  And, do you know who they are?”

“It is a rather long story, but to cut to the chase, a fellow in the 27^th Century, who is a distant descendant of Thomas Alva Edison is trying to invent a device to bring dead people back to life and has inadvertently come up with one-way time travel.  His ‘volunteers’ are the bodies you find.  Except for the last one who will take more explanation as the fellow wasn’t dead before he volunteered.”

“You know this because . . .?  asked Special Agent Fleishman.

“I have been assigned to track down some anomalies in occurrences on the timeline.” Said Amanda White. “It seems what is at best called contraband has been turning up in strange places and times. I was attempting to locate one suspect when the computer linked his image to a frequent visitor to Mr. Edison’s home and laboratory, which by the way has a sign over the door that says, ‘Menlo Park.’  I went to see Mr. Edison who enlightened me on his experiments to bring people back to life.  While there a brother to the fellow I was attempting to find showed up.  When the brother found out I was with ATI he pivoted.  We have no record of him or his brother getting implants.  However, and this is where it gets interesting, Mr. Edison has stumbled on a partial time travel method.  He has something called human essence and it is frozen in combination with one of his creations that make storing frozen things easy.  Well, I touched his frozen human essence and the next thing I knew I was at your crime scene with a young crime scene specialist wondering who I am and where I went.”

“Is this thing you call ‘frozen human essence’ shaped in a 2X2 inch configuration?” asked Captain Batan.

“Yes,” replied Amanda White. “Mr. Edison seems to think he has to make contact with force.  I am here to tell you, simple contact sends one off to, well, now.  Anyway it is a two-foot-long bar two by two inches square on the end.  Although it would appear a piece broke off on this living, err, volunteer.”

Captain Batan looked like he had a realization, “Could that piece cause the flesh around it to begin to freeze?”

I don’t know about that,” replied Amanda White, “However, if a person touches the piece, it will send them someplace in time.  I know where a full bar missing the piece sent me, so . . .”

Captain Batan reached for the phone on the nearest desk, dialed a number and then said, “Has the autopsy begun on the latest John Doe from 38^th and Mulberry?”  He listened for a second and then said, “Tell him not to touch anything near the wound until I get down there.” He hung up and headed for the door.

When the two detectives, Special Agent Fleishman and Amanda White arrived at the morgue on the first floor, they had to suit up prior to entry.  When they got into the medical examination room they found it empty.   Returning to the reception area, Captain Batan asked the clerk “How many people went into the examination room?

The man replied, “The coroner, his assistant, and the stiff.  Why do you ask?”

Captain Batan ignored him and went back into the examination room.  “Any suggestions?

Amanda White stifled a laugh, “I’ll go fetch them.”  She reached out to the wound on Samuel Clancy’s forehead and vanished.

Amanda White materialized in a dense thick grove of trees

next to two very confused men wearing hazard suits.  She took off her helmet and asked, “Any idea of where or when we are, gentlemen?”

The coroner sputtered, “It is the damnedest thing.  One minute I am investigating a foreign object in a wound with my assistant here hovering over me, the next we are standing knee deep in leaves in a very old forest.”

Amanda looked at the assistant, “Were you touching him at all?”

The assistant said, “He said, ‘will you look at this.’  At that point, I put my hand on his back, bent over and the next thing  . . .” The assistant shrugged and moved his hands about indicate the woods “. . .err, we just got here.  No movement, we just sort of arrived.  Where are we?

“My best guess gentlemen is a few years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue,” replied Amanda White.  “How about we go home the same way?”

Before either man could respond they were standing

in the medical examination room with two detectives a man they did not know and the woman who bought them home.  Amanda White said, “I’ll be right back.”  And she pivoted again.

Amanda White materialized in Thomas Aldrich Edison’s laboratory with him still on the floor searching for the piece from his bar of frozen human essence.  “Excuse me, Mr., Edison,” said Amanda.  I located your missing piece of frozen human essence some 600 years earlier.  Could I borrow your gloves so I don’t keep getting kicked backward in time?”

Thomas Aldrich Edison blinked twice, but said nothing and removed his gloves and handed them to her.

Amanda White said, “Thank you.  I’ll bring them back in a few minutes.”  Amanda pivoted

Amanda White materialized in the lab a split second after she had pivoted.

She handed the gloves to the coroner and said, “Use these to retrieve the piece of foreign material in the wound and put it in a glass container that can stand being frozen.  Cap the container and don’t let anyone touch it.  I promised to return the gloves, so would you mind doing it now?