Saturday, April 11, 2009

Episode One
For those out there that are hoping for the continuation of my adventure, I apologize, this isn’t it. However, fear not, I will complete my adventure, soon. My current adventure still has about two weeks left before it ends, so I have plenty of time. This post is an experiment post, and I hope you like it.Episode one:In the annuls of time there have been many heroes, but this story, like most stories focus on just one super hero. Our hero is unassuming, shy, bit of a nerd, mild mannered, clumsy and out of work. To look at him you would never guess he had super powers. You might even suppose he had no powers at all. However, you would be mistaken. OK I wouldn’t blame you for being skeptical. After all how many heroes do you know that are just over five feet tall, balding, and wear coke bottle glasses? I myself can’t think of one.Without further adieu, allow me to introduce you to our hero. His secret identity name is raballard. That’s right the one and only raballard. You think I jest? Believe me I wish I was mistaken. I myself just found out. Our hero, blessed with a quick wit and an uncanny imagination. Both are essential elements is surviving as a super hero, though I will admit possession of wit and imagination are not exclusive to super heroes.What, you may ask makes raballard a super hero? Besides spunk and a never wavering sense of right and wrong, of course, and determination. Raballard has two devices placed in strategic places in his body. Mainly a magical, mystical pace maker and a device in his nether region, which has yet to reveal its purpose. I hear the naysayers among you, a magical pacemaker indeed. To be frank, I too had my doubts. Mostly because the devices have been more of a nuisance then anything magical. That was before today, everything changed early this morning. This morning, when the magical pacemaker transported our mild mannered raballard to the scene of the crime.Our story does not begin with once upon a time, although that would be cute, quaint, and cuddly. Our story just begins.Dateline 3:17 PM normal daylight savings time March the 26th, 2009Raballard sat in his tiny cubical contemplating the project de jour. This project was similar to all other projects that had passed through his tiny cubical during the last forty years. He had no way of knowing that this job was different. Had his senses been developed, the way most super heroes develop their senses he would have know. This benign, no different than any other project had been imprinted with the smell of the latest catastrophe sweeping through his nation. The project, hereto with known as project 2941 had the feint smell of evil attached to it. Not just the smell of evil, but the pure acidic smell of economic evil. How was poor Raballard to know his neat everything in its place world would be torn asunder?A squeak came from his company phone; he seldom got any kind of communiqué from his phone. Most days his company phone lay dormant. He had considered removing the phone altogether, but as it belonged to the company he thought better of it, and used the phone as a paper weight. Engrossed with project 2941 Raballard paid no heed to the urgent squeak from his paper weight.The second time the squeak startled him; he knew he could not avoid the request coming from the phone. “Raballard please report to Supervisor Largemouth’s office at once. Do not delay, drop everything and come at once” the phone went silent.Reporting to Supervisor Largemouth’s office was not in itself an uncommon request; he had been called to his supervisor’s office many times over the last forty years. He had lost track of the various number of supervisors he had reported to. This time the request seemed eerie. Raballard’ s intuition clicked into high gear. This was not a request to appear, no, it was more like an order.Raballard knocked on the office door, and waited for a response. The response was instantaneous; “enter” came booming from behind the closed door.The office never ceased to amaze him; it was six times larger than his cubical. Every supervisor had modified or enlarged their office, many times at expense of expandable employees. The current supervisor’s office was no exception. It was grandiose, with three solid oak desks, crystal chandeliers, three overstuffed chairs stood behind each desk. Priceless pieces of art adorned each wall. It was no doubt the current supervisor lived beyond his needs.To Raballard’s surprise Supervisor Largemouth sat behind the largest desk, a desk he seldom used. The desk has been called the judgment desk, and for good reasons. Supervisor Largemouth twiddled his thumbs as he sat, listening to ACDC blaring in the background.“Awe excellent, I am so glad you could free yourself from your desk,” he remarked as he pointed to a small steel back chair for his victim to sit in. “tell me Ra, how have you been the last few months? Is all that nasty cancer been removed?” a chill ran up and down Raballard’s spine. He had not been called here to chit-chat about his cancer. He knew something more chilling was in the air, he could not place a finger on it, but he knew. He was about to answer, when he was cut off by his supervisor. “Never mind, you know I really could care less about your so-called cancer.”“But sir, I have the receipts from my doctor and hospital.”Supervisor Largemouth continued unabated, “Yes, yes. Receipts, anybody can produce receipts. The jest of the matter is your time off has cost this company a lot of money. Money is tight. In today’s sagging economy, well we just can’t have this, can we?”“No sir, I guess we can’t have that”“Good, so you agree” Supervisor Largemouth said with a glee and a half turned snarl on his lips. “Therefore, I have no recourse than to let you go. Blame the economy if you wish. You have two minutes to vacate the premises, after which you will be arrested as a trespasser” he gave Raballard an evil grin “Good day, and thank you for slaving away at The Steel Plant, for the last..However many years you’ve been here.”“But sir..”“Your time has begun. There is to be no severance pay, no letter of recommendation, as you know these things take time and money. Blame the economy, blame the powers that be, but I am blameless. You have one minute and forty-five seconds left. Please don’t make me call security, as you know that will take time and money”Raballard stood up, looking at his former supervisor, pleading for his position to be returned to him. “But sir…”“I can see we are going to go about this the hard way, very well I will have security escort you off the premises. Of course we will need to bill you for doing so”“No, I’m going” Raballard said as he turned to go.“Blame it on the economy” kept running through is mind.The evil that has gripped his nation had its next victim. A victim, that up until the time he became a victim had no idea he was about to become a hero.“I will not only blame it on the economy, but I will defeat this economy.” He said with determination. Raballard had never been one to crusade for a cause. His life had been one of wait and see. This time he had been pushed too far. He was now ready to battle for truth justice, and the return to normalcy.The mild mannered Raballard became the hero he was destined to become. A hero was born. He put his key in the ignition of his old beat up car and turned it on.There are forces in herodom that cannot be explained. Why is it on one day your pacemaker is a nuisance while the next day it becomes magical? The pacemaker became just that when he turned on the ignition. The car vanished as soon as the key had been turned. The magical pacemaker had transported Raballard to the scene of the crime. To the beginning