Thursday, October 29, 2020

The Wind is a Cat - Dr. Electro, E VI

 Letters from Josh

  Monsters and Aliens 10/28/20                                                                           Letter 29


Well hey there, Crew!  And an early “Happy Halloween” to ya!  It’s that time of year when our thoughts turn to the creepies and crawlies lurking in the forest, the ghouls flitting among the trees, or at least our imagination.  As I drove home this evening, a sinister fog rose from the fields.  It was obviously up to something, but like most things of that nature, it was best to not ask, and keep on driving.  “Nothing to see here, folks…”  And the mysterious and unexplained brings us to the neighborhood of a fascinating topic:  Aliens!  UFOs!  Intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos! 


 It’s quite often that, when talking about the Universe, the topics of God and Aliens pop up.  I’ll start with the Aliens.  I don’t know much about the topic, but get asked about it a lot.  My answers are “professional”, boring, and vague.  So, I’ll be diving into the topic, learning all I can, and speaking about it soon! And, this is where I need your help.  Wouldn’t it be fun to sprinkle a talk about Aliens/Lifeforms/UFOs with some stories? 


A buddy just told me about a UFO sighting, and one that his friend had confided, too.  So, I’ll be doing some careful reading, and I was hoping:  Do YOU have a UFO sighting?  Ever see a little green man?  Something mysterious?  I’d love to hear.  And, if you’d be OK with me using your story in my next talk (it can be anonymous), let me know!  


And here’s another Space bit that leads into a life question:  I was speaking with a friend today who’s really struggling with the isolation in her retirement community.  She misses family and home.  Later, after some personal disappointment, I peered through a telescope at the Jura mountains, soaring twelve thousand feet over the desolate lunar surface.  An owl hooted in the distance, and boy, did I feel lonely, too.  Here I am, a lad of 34, and I can do anything, go anywhere, interact with more people than the average person, and...although it sounds both incredibly obvious AND yet surprising at the same time, I get lonely all the time.  Loneliness seems something that can affect us all, and sometimes, it’s really a bummer. I’m going to start to tackle the subject by spending this week just observing the feeling, both in myself and others, and start to poke at it a bit.  Drop me a line if you have any thoughts on the topic.  I bet we can get somewhere together. And now...


Dr. Electro - Episode VI - The Wind is a Cat  


Previously on Dr. Electro: Murphy gives the upscale life the slip for an evening, boarding a streetcar, where he receives a mysterious plea for help from an orphan.  


 The wind was like a cat, lashing a giant rainy paw around the corner to rake Murphy with uncertainty.  He waited under the trolley shelter for the transfer to Union Street, and for the first time since the War, felt nervous. Or maybe it was caring about something again, and realizing that he could fail.  Although he would have previously avoided the sensation, it was preferable over boredom.  At long last, the headlamp of the Union Street transfer glimmered through the drizzle and fog. Boarding, Murphy found himself decidedly on the wrong side of the tracks. 


The dim light of the decrepit interior reeked of a smell mysterious yet one or two thoughts away from being alarmingly familiar. A lone old woman watched him suspiciously, and he felt his fine tailoring less armor and more of a gaping hole in this part of town.  Seven blocks passed uneventfully, yet Murphy’s sense of foreboding grew.  Glancing down, he caught sight of his expensive shoes, and smiled.  How much more rewarding this night already had been than the last one inside at that vapid club.  The trolley did what it was supposed to, surprisingly, and trundled into Union Street. 


“Well, I guess this is it” he thought, the Cat snarling one more time around the corner with a gust for good measure.  511...509...steps echoing in the night, he arrived at 507, a massive hulk of a building that once was an engine of commerce, but now sat dark and sullen in the autumn rain, save for the mysterious flicker of a blue light on the grimy windows…


Across (and under) town, in the culvert:  The League of Inquiring Minds’ meeting began to simmer, a secretive pot of subterranean subversion. “It’s all about the NOISE, Gentlemen!” the head man shouted, the irony not lost on Dr. Electro and Rutherford, watching from the shadows.  “As you may recall, I was rudely awakened for the tenth time last spring by those urchins playing some form of sportsball” he positively spat.  “A busy mind cannot make a racket, and this world is fast becoming a cacophony.  We must ACT.” The echo of his statement rumbled like thunder down the great cavernous pipe. Suddenly, Rutherford sneezed. To be continued...


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