Truth in Fiction

[Nemesis]

The players in a game don't get to be cheerleaders as well, Raven.

-Cynthia

[Cybermancer]

I was feeling a bit of whimsy today so I thought I'd write a little childrens story with supernatural over tones.

Once upon a time there were four siblings. Bri was the eldest though as his twin sister Chrissy often pointed out, only by a matter of minutes. Of course both twins lorded their two years over their younger brother Matty while he in turn lorded his one year seniority over the youngest, Al.

Despite the pecking order determined by seniority, the four siblings loved each other greatly and usually played peacefully with one another. This became especially important the summer they moved from the house they had lived in their whole lives to a new and larger place. Even after they had moved in, it seemed as though they were constantly discovering some new nook or cranny for them to explore both in the house or the larger property.

They were all of them children of imagination who dreamed vividly and shared those dreams in their play. So perhaps their greatest exploration of all was all merely fantasy. Perhaps.

It started in the garage. The children were all pretending that they were building a spacecraft that would take them to new worlds of wonder and awe.

"It's gotta have wings!" Bri said with authority.

"Nuh uh." Matty replied hotly. "Lotsa spacecraft don't have wings."

"The shuttle has wings." Bri replied with his hands on his hips.

"The shuttle's gonna blow up!" Chrissy exclaimed. "We don't want ours to blow up too!"

"Wheels." Al said in order to contribute to the conversation. "To drive around."

And all the others thought that was a perfectly reasonable addition.

Such is the logic of children.

With the basic concept of the design worked out, the children then sat down at the work bench to sketch and color their design. Al, being five, soon grew bored of this and got off his stool to explore the garage. Beneath were his father's car was normally parked he found a trap door. The 'door' was really more of metal grate to allow access to an oil trap but Al had no way to know this.

"Door!" he called to his siblings.

The other children looked up with curiosity. A door they had not yet opened? In a flash, the other three were gathered around. It took all four of them lifting to move it out of the way. Then they stood around the maw of darkness they had created.

"It's dark down there." Chrissy said with just a slight tremble in her voice.

"We need a flashlight." Matty replied, easily solving the problem.

Bri was the one to get the required flashlight and shine it down the hole. Below them, the children could see a long, narrow room obscured by dust floating in the air. The light gleamed off something below them.

"There's something down there!" Bri announced.

"Can you tell what it is?" Chrissy asked as she peered down.

"It looks like it's made of gold!" Matty said with wonder, "maybe it's a pile of pirate treasure!"

"Ladder." Al said, pointing to the wall where the solution to their next problem rested.

With effort and cooperation, the four children managed to move the ladder and position it in the hole to allow them to go down to investigate this strange and unknown mystery.

What they saw there was a one of a kind vehicle. The bulk of the vehicle was a pair of brass spheres, studded all over by variously coloured quartz crystal. Attached to one of the spheres was a pair of smoke stacks. The front sphere had a door as well as a large glass window facing forward. All of this was supported on the chassis of what one might take to be a carriage or buggy. Four skinny wooden spoked wheels supported the entire weight of this unusual apparatus.

Al's face was full of wonder and awe. "It's a spaceship!"

The other children nodded their agreement. From their perspective, the only way to get this thing into this strange narrow little room would have been to lower it from the ceiling. And the only way out would have to be to fly it out. And once you start flying, why stop before you get to the moon?

It was Bri who opened the door to the apparatus. Inside was a leather 'love seat' that would have accommodated two adults easily but could also seat four small children with only a little crowding. In front of the small couch were a series of pedals, levers and gauges.

Behind the couch was a stack of wood and what appeared to the children to be either an old fashioned wood stove or perhaps more accurately, the furnace of an old steam engine train.

Immediately Bri jumped onto the ouch and started pulling levers and then jumping down on pedals. "How do we make it go?" He queried after just a few moments of this.

"I think we need to burn some of the wood." Matty speculated. "Like gas for the car but wood. There is probably something that makes the fire come out the bottom to push us up."

"We should close the door before we try." Chrissy said thoughtfully. "But even before that, we should get some sandwiches or something to take on the trip. In case we get hungry."

"Okay." Bri said, taking charge as he often did. "Chrissy, you go get the sandwiches. I'll go get more wood so we've got lots to burn." Then he gestured to Matty and Al. "And I guess you two should see if you can figure out how to make it go."

The children went about their tasks. And while it seemed to be odd, Matty and Al were able to figure out a great deal about how the apparatus worked. They figured out that since the two middle levers were attached to the front wheels, they must be for steering. And that by pulling this way and that, they could make the front tires go right or left. And as the smaller levers on the handles of the big middle levers seemed to cause clamps to close on the wheels, it must be for braking, like a bicycle.

It was Al especially who seemed to figure out the purpose of all the various other dials, gauges and levers. He said they spoke to him, so he could see them apart without taking them apart, like he did with all his toys. Matty accepted that explanation, figuring it was no weirder than his sister forgetting that people were only talking when their lips moved.

Soon, the older children were back and the four were ready to begin their first adventure. First they got the fire going, which Bri did because he was oldest but mostly because he had done all the heavy work of carrying the wood. Then Chrissy closed the door. All four children crowded on the couch and watching the dial, Al announced when it was time to pull the levers and in what order.

Coloured spots appeared in front of the window of the apparatus and then seemed to flash by them, like in some of the shows they watched with their parents. Like a rainbow of stars.

"We're in space!" Bri announced with excitement.

And then they crashed.