As an author, I have to decide how I want the story I’m writing to end.  Most of the time I make that decision before pretty much anything else I do.  This time though, I thought about two different endings.

Here’s my request to you; read this weeks offering, and next week I’ll put up the second version and you all can tell me which one you like best.

Thoughts Are Things Version One

The planet circled its primary the same as usual, spinning on its axis, morning and evening, coming and going.  The people too, rising with the sun, going to bed at night.  No one knew it was coming.  They were at work, or grocery shopping, or making love when it happened, the planetary explosion.  Bits of planet were scattered across the solar system, some caught in the gravitational pull of the asteroid belt, some, spinning out of control, caught in the tail of a passing comet, on to new places.

The thoughts that were cut short, they traveled too, out, out into the solar system, the galaxy, the universe.  Thoughts are things, some of them reached Earth.  Most of them passed unknowing through the population, the wavelengths wrong for the person they hit, lost forever.  But one man, one man only had the right brainwave frequency and the right frame of mind for the thought that found him.

He was at work, an engineering firm.  He was junior most, so while he did the menial tasks required of him, hoping for a future with more interesting projects, his mind was open, idle, ready to receive.  The thought entered his mind and he was able to catch it.  He stopped the fiddly work he was doing, grabbed a clean sheet of paper and began sketching.

Working through his break and his lunch hour, and into the evening, he thoughtlessly said good night to those around him as he drew the wondrous diagrams.  When he finished, late that night he looked up from his drafting table, back nearly frozen into place from the many hours of hunching over the board.

How, he thought to himself, how will the boss take these?  Will he even look?  He rolled the drawings up, put them into a tube and capped it.  He took it home with him, there was no way he was going to leave them sitting around.

He hardly slept that night, the memory of the diagrams burned in his mind like phosphorus, glowing in their splendor.  He hurried to work in the morning, skipping the usual morning pleasantries in the drafting room.  He appeared at his boss’ secretary’s desk before she had her first cup of coffee.

“Is Mr. Jamison in?  I’d like to see him about an idea.”

“He’s not in yet,” she said, reaching over and turning on her computer.  “Can I make an appointment for you?”

Swallowing his disappointment, “Yes, please, Ellen that would be good.”

Later in the day, he was ushered into Jamison’s office.  “Mr. Jamison, thank you for seeing me.  I have an idea.”

“Nice to see you too Tony, we haven’t had the chance to talk since the firm hired you.”  He got up from behind his desk to shake Tony’s hand.  What do you have?”

Tony walked to the conference table, “I had an idea yesterday; it wouldn’t let me alone so I drafted it up.”  Taking the plans out of the tube, he unrolled them onto the table.  “Take a look.”

They studied the plans, running fingers over the lines, following the electronic paths, looking at the junctions, discussing power requirements.
“What do you call it?” Jamison asked after an hour.

“I haven’t thought that far,” Tony said, a little surprised.  He had been so wrapped up in the idea, what to name it never occurred to him.

“Let’s call it The Universal Power Coupling,” his boss said, clapping Tony on the shoulder.  “I’ll give you 10% of the profit and you can be on the development team.”

Tony was stunned, he hadn’t thought that far yet either.  “Thank you Mr. Jamison, I’ll take it.”

The End

611 Words

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