Hufferd - Colonel Crystals Parallel Universe

Colonel Crystals Parallel Universe

Copyright 2018/2019 James Hufferd

Published by:

Trine Day LLC

PO Box 577

Walterville, OR 97489

1-800-556-2012

www.TrineDay.com

publisher@TrineDay.net

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019933149

Hufferd, James

1st ed.

p. cm.

Epub (ISBN-13) 978-1-63424-169-4

Mobi (ISBN-13) 978-1-63424-170-0

Print (ISBN-13) 978-1-63424-168-7

1. Fiction. I. Hufferd, James, II. Title

First Edition

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the USA

Distribution to the Trade by:

Independent Publishers Group (IPG)

814 North Franklin Street

Chicago, Illinois 60610

312.337.0747

www.ipgbook.com

To Peace and Tax activists
May the twain unite to beget a world of good!

All events portrayed in this novel are fictitious. All persons portrayed, as well as all institutions, specified are (with one single exception), products of the authors imagination. The same cannot, unfortunately, be truthfully said regarding the situational background portrayed, nor, in all probability, the leading character of the novels personal notions about whats gone quite plainly haywire in this country & how to fix it.

Table of Contents

I

S ubpoenaed ex-Colonel A. A. Crystal was trying his utmost to be reasonable. My question is, why cant we ratchet back exclusively to a legitimate mission for our armed forces, to let our nation and the world breathe free, unshackled?

This time, his interrogator, Dr. Kiffin, an enlisted man the colonel was unfamiliar with attached to the Psych Unit at the base, growled, Ill ask the questions. Such matters are not for you to decide or crusade for. I am obliged to tell you this: unless you are willing, Mr. Alva A. Crystal, to recant and renounce your idiotic campaign, or whatever it is you care to call it

I will lose my pension. Is that about right?

Well, you could if youre lucky.

Colonel Crystal, ordered next to report forthwith to Tyndale U.S. Air Force Bases Radiation Unit, was handed on his much-delayed return to the Psych Unit an Affidavit of Agreement and a pen and, unobserved, signed it and marked the second box Decline.

* * *

The resolved ex-Colonels sweeping vision, beyond the scale of a small town, had become clear. On fire, he studied the pastor, Jonah Juless, face intently as he spoke for signs of assent.

Im convinced, he said, that, even if perhaps a dozen or a score of American lives are or have been saved that would otherwise be lost, by our trillions-of-dollars of violent and massively terrorizing, deadly and deadening, unasked-for worldwide infestation of American power decade after decade which I seriously doubt, by the way the hundreds of thousands eventually untold millions of human lives lost and wrecked past salvaging in the process, make it manifestly not worth it. Jonahs resistance to his argument was shredded.

* * *

Whoosh! Bam! Argh!! Hon. Dr. Alva A. Crystal, retired Air Force Colonel from the Middle East wars, traumatized and turned peace activist, or peacenik, awoke with a raucous and disconcerting start, as always, at 7:01 on the dot that early December morning, in his secluded combination retirement and work compound, at Steinhatchee, on Gulf-side north Floridas forgotten coast," still badly shaken by another spate of half-remembered, appalling PTSD-fueled dreams. With his wife, Felicia, off again at her ailing mothers side in Charlotte, one particular, horrifying dream that had him working in an observatory, a place hed never actually been, had left its mark for the fourth time in as many nights.

An hour later, after the poached egg, fruit, and a biscuit their maid Ludmilla served him on a silver tray, he faced his de facto staff, all sitting side-by-side on the hammock, birds on a wire, for about six-point-five seconds there in his so-called conference room," a big sun porch screened on three sides jutting toward the Gulf breezes looking out on a field of tall, green snake grass dotted with numerous mangroves and a cypress knee or two next to the water. Still, he dearly loved the three. And they did do some helpful things, like run errands, respond sometimes to ideas. But couldnt connect to his real-life adopted passion: the mega-crisis of U.S. military deployment and mission.

There was Kit, an over-grown local kid, with a rather thin but distinguishing handlebar mustache. There was Fred, the average-size, above-average IQ, fair-haired high school quarterback a few years back, now between computer repair jobs, whod skipped college because it didnt pay for his advanced pro-fishing gear. And then there was the whiz-kid, though curiously a bit shiftless, Rensselaer-grad nephew, Colby Gilibray, down from Rochester since two years ago, when he had first come to spend a summer. Colonel Crystal sent the first two off in Colbys late-model red Buick on an errand to deliver a short translation from Spanish to his wifes friend, Mrs. Alice Ferris, twelve miles distant in Cross City, and to get copies of daily newspapers.

The Colonel stretched his long frame halfway across the table and spoke, in a lowered voice, to his kith, kin and prospective understudy, as though someone might be eavesdropping: Colby, you wont believe what came across the transom this morning. Colby Edward, his elder sister Margarets only son, vaguely chastised by half-acknowledged earlier brushes with the authorities over minor amounts of drugs, was uncharacteristically all ears.

You know who Will Goldsby is? Well, yeah. Sure

Ive personally heard this morning from one of his handlers, or I should say attendants, a Mr. Conrad Lawrence, a lawyer I met once at a Knicks game, sending out a sort of APB to certain of us want-to-be and a few real detectives, as it were, insisting that Goldsby is an innocent man a playboy, sure (in his words), even more than possibly a rascal. But, really, an innocent man. And an absolutely great, world-changing man at least to listen to him whos being socked with accusations to destroy his reputation and legacy, see? Or thats what he said.

But, his people would say that, wouldnt they? the equally tall, strapping boy-man surprisingly shot back. I mean what else are they going to say, with all thats come out? But

Colonel Crystal raised his hand, signaling for his nephew to desist. Please. I wasnt going to ask what you think of Will Goldsby or his accusers, he said. Because, everybody in the world is thinking that, all thinking the same thing that hes a dirty, sniveling ogre. You know why?

Colby drew a blank.

Because were supposed to think that. Thats the way the media works. But think about this. The media has spent a lot of time and precious breath, and spilt a whole lot of ink, hours of air time, steadily, for three or four weeks now, to make sure you do think that. Now, why would they decide to go to all that trouble and expense for such a venture?

To titillate the public.

Theres that. But why would they need to convince anybody that hes guilty, if it really was such an open-and-shut, obvious situation? Of course, thats what anyone would think after the number theyve done on him. Why would thirteen, or is it twenty-plus, women, even a lot more than that by now, maybe as many as fifty , all come up with nearly identical stories accusing this supposed arch-scamp, Goldsby, of drugging and raping them, if it wasnt true? Ah! Good question, eh? If it wasnt true at least in a few or most, of the instances? At least, thats what were supposed to think. And maybe it really is true.