it is. Right there!” the short burly officer said to the other, both entirely ignoring Frank’s presence.
“Yes, I saw it first,” the tall and much thinner officer responded.
The two officers exchanged looks at the rock and then a knowing glance to each other. They then emitted what Frank could best perceive as a contented beeping sound.
As Frank stood there looking at them, the thought that standing next to one another they resembled a spoon and a plate ran through his mind. He shook his head violently once again, trying to free his mind of any remaining cobwebs.
Frank gathered himself. “You two want my rock, but why?”
“That’s confidential. Yes, very confidential. Matter of national security,” they both said in a very uniformed fashion. Their voices were strangely monotone, but Frank immediately dismissed this. The bit about George Washington and the whole business surrounding the beeping had been enough.
The stocky agent quickly grabbed the rock away from Frank, and with that the two officers left as fast as they had arrived, slamming the door behind them.
Frank was left standing alone in his now even more dimly lit apartment, with questions running through his mind like mice. It beat the feeling of stinky cheese, he concluded.
After Frank peered out the window in a failing attempt to catch a glimpse of the two men, he decided the day had gone on plenty long already and that he would go directly to bed. He would skip his nightly reading, which was now A Case of Identity, the third in the long line of Sherlock Holmes Adventures by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Apparently the events of tonight were enough to snap his cycle, at least temporarily.
So with that it was a night, and Frank quickly retreated to his bedroom. As he slid into bed, he put the typical finishing touch on the night. Looking hard and long at both his once wife and child, then giving the photo a kiss before sliding it back onto the nightstand. Frank reached over and shut off the light, then laid his head on the pillow. He was lost in his normal thoughts about how that Sunday afternoon had felt when they had arrived home from the hospital with newborn Johnathon. Frank stayed lost, at least for a brief moment, before the events of tonight interrupted his memories.
The completely dark apartment was now mostly quiet and would remain that way for the rest of night. Although, if one had been there to listen ever so intently, they would have made out the soft flick of a light switch, a low nonsensical grumbling, and then another even lower grumbling in a quite irritated and sarcastic tone, “Unquestionable authority, unquestionable authority!”
Chapter Eight
As Frank was resting in bed, pushing thoughts regarding the Founding Fathers from his head, there was a planet trillions and trillions of kilometers away named Hiruaha.
In fact it had been there, or more accurately orbited there for quite a while already, billions of years to be slightly more accurate, and would continue to do so for billions more.
Currently, large numbers of Hiruahians were fleeing all three of the planet’s major cities, Moran, Prent, and Kita for the Geric Mountains. Meanwhile, the rest of the planet stayed inside their homes, with the fathers of most families busy boarding up their homes’ windows and doors.
Soon after running from one sufficiently boarded up room to another, the fathers began wondering if in fact they could get out any longer. Assuming that a situation would arrive that called for doing so.
Upon reflection of the job just finished, the fathers were left to speculate on many factors. Such as if they were now in fact safer inside rather than out.
Next, whether they should have been considering any of this before now, and if so, why in The Great Creator’s blessed name hadn’t their wives or children mentioned it. At this point, the majority of the fathers then ran from room to room checking the density of the boards. Again.
Coincidentally, their families had been doing very little all morning besides mentioning the possible error in sealing themselves inside their homes. Nevertheless, the fathers had been too busy with all the boarding up business to realize that their family was protesting.
Additionally, the fathers were now too busy resenting their families for not informing them, to consider what in their view had not been said in the earlier part of the day. Knowing that it is more difficult to feel resentment for someone when you consider their point of view, they simply didn’t. Problem solved.
While their anger toward their wives and children would soon be forgotten, the panic that was in the air would be with them, their families, and the rest of the citizens of Hiruaha for a great deal longer.
The news that a coup had taken place, where their previous leader Manny the Mellow was overthrown, had just been announced.
It had been a nice run for Manny, but the tide of change had arrived and ended it suddenly, and during parchesi nonetheless. Now, Bruce the Belligerent was in charge.
The coup took place during a session of parliament and had been given aide by the members being heavily distracted by parliamentary procedure, along with one of the long ongoing political games that was well underway at the time. That being parchesi.
Manny, who was more upset that the game had been interrupted than being unseated as leader, issued the following statement shortly afterwards:
“Balance of a civilization or not, there is never a good enough reason to interrupt leisure. Ever.”
Later adding before being launched into space, “Unless you think it’d be fun, fun for all.”
The coup apparently had not been all that fun for Manny.
Meanwhile the news had hit the inhabitants of the whole planet pretty hard. They knew that the tranquil pace of life, a trademark of Manny’s administration, was now surely over.
With rants, brain numbing decisions, and unpredictable violent outbursts by the truckload undoubtedly to come with Bruce as driver. Nevertheless, they began bracing themselves the best they could. There was still the matter of restoring their Beacon of Light, and in doing so getting back to being the real Hiruaha again.
Bruce’s men were currently busy carrying out their orders to do just that.
The term “men” is a loosely used one here, as they are Hiruahians, which are a mix of creatures. Some are Etans, some are Frogolinians, and others still are Hybrids.
Frogs much as we know them were once one of the few species, along with the Etans, that populated Hiruaha. They had been frogs much like Earth frogs for thousands of years until they acquired the minor exception of suddenly being two hundred times their original size.
These frogs underwent this change during the electrical storm of two trillion one billion five hundred million three hundred thousand and forty-two, which just happened to be during sexual reproductive season for the frogs as well. Both events also coincided with that year’s acid rain season on Hiruaha.
The outcome of all three simultaneously occurring produced an intellectual and genetic mutation rarely seen before or since, especially by the Etans. Nevertheless, they figured that The Great Creator knew best.
Evolution had received a major jump-start. Literally overnight the frogs that had been given
