IMAGINATION'S PLACE
FICTION

THE OTHER SIDE
By; Speaker Gerald A. Polley

Watching a t.v. show reminded The Ancient One that there was something he should check on, a place he hadn't been for a long time. So the next evening he gathered his companion and they took flight. They landed in the southwest of his country, in a great military complex.
Taking on human guise they walked up to a heavily guarded bunker.
"HALT!" the guard cried. "Restricted area. No admittance!"
"Starfire!" The Ancient One answered, "Code for toda: two pennies, three nickle, one quarter."
"Sir!" the soldier snapped, "Open the gate!" he continued. The gate opened and The Ancient One and his companion walked on, as the other guards stared at them in bewilderment. At the bunker's entrance another guard confronted them.
"What color is your star sir?" he asked.
"Gold yesterday," The Ancient One answered, "silver today, bronze tomorrow."
The soldier nodded, and without a word opened the bunker. "Do you wish escort, sir?" he asked, after he stepped aside.
"No," The Ancient One answered. "Are the observation records below?"
"Yes sir!" the soldier snapped. The Ancient One proceeded on and his companion followed him.
"Pretty big base!" his companion commented. "Must be thousands of troops here!"
"Yes," The Ancient One answered. "They have to be here to guard what's below, so the government took advantage of it, built everything else here, too."
They descended several flights of stairs and entered a large chamber. There was what appeared to be a natural cavern. Three loops of copper wire as thick as a man's arm, were wound around it. Each end of the copper wire disappeared into a metal casing. "Whoa!" The Ancient One's companion muttered, kicking one of the casings, "How far do these go down?"
"One-hundred-fifty feet," The Ancient One answered. "They're a foot across and filled with molten copper. They draw off the energy keeping the barrier closed." He went over to a computer. "Not much has been happening," he remarked, "five years ago the wooden buildings they could see in the town burned. No one appeared to fight the fires. Last year a family of four camped in the cavern for three days until they ran out of provisions and journeyed on. Nothing has been observed since."
The Ancient One went to the cavern and felt the thick glass that sealed it. "Looks like heavy stuff!" his companion remarked.
"Three inches of leaded glass!" The Ancient One answered, "dust is pretty bad today. You can barely tell it's daytime over there. The day/night cycles are reverse."
Suddenly there was a movement on the other side of the glass. A figure came up to it. It was The Ancient One, but he was shriveled, twisted, covered with scars and sores. "Can't stay away, can you?" came a weak voice. "Have to come and gloat. Have to see what you've done. Are you happy? You kept them here. You let them die. There's nothing left to feed on. Now we're dying! Are you happy?"
"No," The Ancient One answered, "destroying an entire world gave me no pleasure."
"But they could not come here. The disease they brought the first time wiped out hundreds of thousands...millions! And those that came died of diseases from here. We weren't compatible. It would've only wiped out both races!"
The withered creature banged the glass. "Some from both would have survived!" he cried, "They would have survived and made a stronger, greater order. They would have been the purest, the best. It was God's will!"
"No," The Ancient One answered, "I stopped the madness of men, not the will of God. I have to go. I am sure the next time I return here you will not appear again."
"Go to Hell!" the other Ancient One answered.
"Been there!" The Ancient One gave back. "BEEN THERE!"
He turned and walked away, his companion following. "When did they come before?" he asked.
"1918," The Ancient One explained.
"Why does it look like you?" his companion continued, very irritated.
"Remember me telling you," The Ancient One explained, "how I hat the thought that in another dimension I might be a Catholic Priest?"
"Yes."
"There," The Ancient One continued, "I'm quite a lot more than a priest, a CONSIDERABLE lot more. Or, I WAS." "Whoa!" his companion managed, "Whoa!"
They exited the bunker and went about their other business. They had a lot to do. They didn't want their world to end up like the one through the portal.
Their world MUSN'T end like the one through the portal!

THE END

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