Doug DonnanExecutive Editor/OM-GEN+
"Check Your Messages"
by
Doug Donnan
[
Manhattan, New York 1931 ]
“That’s right… she’s a damn pigeon!”
the senior aide shouted as he looked into the
tinted emerald glass and
cedar wood aviary. The entire sanctuary was a demand of
the decidedly eccentric
tenant…Nikola Tesla. Its immediate construction came as a
total surprise to even his most
dedicated underlings. Varun Caputra knew the peculiar
idiosyncracies of his mentor
better than almost anyone. However, this particular
obligation was beyond the
reach of colloquial sanity. Caputra was beside himself with
angst as he tried to delegate
his understanding of the points and particulars for the
upcoming wedding.
“The master was adamant that this is to be
a private ceremony,” Caputra almost
sighed as he turned to
address the group of white smocked assistants there in the
austere confines of Tesla’s
hotel suite. “He is now out and about getting fitted for his
tuxedo. Our job, our dilemma
if you will, is to locate and make ready the blushing, albeit
winged, bride! The ceremony
itself will be held here in these very rooms at exactly three
o’clock,” he said as he
looked down at his golden pocket watch. “What we need to—
“But how in blue blazes are we supposed
to know which one of those birds out there
is the…bride to be?” a
bespectacled young man with slicked down red hair rudely cut in
as he jabbed a pointing
finger out into the coo and chaos of the ‘Teslaviary’.
“This whole thing is insane!” from a
rotund fellow who pulled repeatedly on his long
scraggly black beard. “Let’s
just say we find the right pigeon out there and then,
somehow, manage to grab—
sequester it. Then what are we going to do…dress it up in
some sort of cockamamie
wedding gown and clip some tiny jewelry on it for Christ’ sake?”
“No, no, no!” Caputra exclaimed as he reached
in and slid out a worn photograph
from the top pocket of his
lab coat. “Tesla despises jewelry of any kind worn by a female.
Here, pass this picture
around. This is what the bride…Princess Penelope, looks like.”
“This damn picture is all worn and faded,”
black beard announced as he handed it
back to a petite brunette
aide who was leaning in over the red leather couch.
“The princess looks darkish gray,” she
decided as she zoomed in on it with blue eyes,
“almost black it would appear.”
They all now gathered together at the
threshold of the bustling pigeon coop and
stared inside. The cacophony
was demoralizing to say the least. Their heads rolled all
around and about as they
gazed at the dozens of flapping, cackling birds.
“Jesus…they’re all dark gray,” red hair
sighed. “There’s not much time left. We’re
doomed.”
Caputra snatched away the dog-eared
photograph and sailed it behind them onto the
coffee table. “Well, just
maybe, if we get a hold of a similar bird, the master won’t notice
the difference,” he decided.
“He’s Nikola Tesla!” black beard replied
with both hands thrown up high.
“He notices everything!”
Come on you three,” Caputra announced with
a ridiculous John Wayne-like gesture
of his hand. “Let’s do
this!” He pulled back the plastic curtain, and the quartet
tiptoed inside.
* *
*
“What in
the name of Montezuma is going on here?” Tesla shouted as he cautiously
entered
the apartment and stepped sand-crab-like over to the aviary. The skittish
foursome
had only just recently emerged from their safari into the pigeon penthouse.
They
stood in a tight guarded group just around the dining room table which they had
less
than
expertly improvised into a dismal white linen altar. One singular red wax
dinner
candle
was centered and lighted. A diminutive black robed, bible bearing priest or
parson
stood
off to one side.
His
bespectacled eyes raised in either heavenly appeal or some silent earthly
apprehension.
On the opposite side of the altar stood an ashen Caputra. He had cupped
in
his feathered grip the group’s pecking pick. His mouth, in a feeble attempt at
a smile,
resembled
the mail slot in a door more than anything else
“Are you ready my son?” from the now level
eyed holy man.
“Ready…ready for what my good man?” Tesla
almost spat out as he looked around
at
the gaping faces of his assistants. He crossed over to the undersized living
room area
and
stared down at the coffee table. He reached down and picked up the pigeon
picture.
“We used that photograph to locate
your…your, Princess Penelope here,” Caputra
gulped
as he held out the bobbling, button-eyed pigeon, “for the…the wedding
ceremony.”
he
all but whispered.
“You impertinent twit!” Tesla exclaimed as
he held high the picture. “This is not a
photograph.
It is an electromagnetic miniature copy of a Roentgen ray graphic plate...
An
x-ray!
It is part of an ionized gas and rotating alternating
current x-ray project that me and my
friend
Wilhelm Roentgen are working— he threw up his hands as if trying to explain it
all
would be completely futile. “Did you in fact use this picture to make
your rude
selection
from my pigeon sanctuary?”
“Yes sir,” from a now blushing Caputra.
“I’m afraid it’s all we had to go by. We
wanted
to surprise you. You must please try and understand that this whole event is
somewhat
unusual for us all. We were only trying to—
“Let’s see if I can make an educated guess
here,” Tesla cut in sharply as he began
to
slowly pace around the whole matrimonial scene there in his apartment. “You lot
‘let
yourselves
in’ to my humble quarters here in a sad attempt to surprise me with all this
falderal,”
he said as he waived his hand dramatically about the conjugal domestic chapel.
“You
used this highly sensitive prototype electromagnetic plate to try and seize,
perhaps
sequester
would be a better word, my bride Penelope. And, the end result was you only
managed
to come up with that poor unfortunate creature, who looks absolutely
nothing
like
her for your information, in a pathetic attempt to not surprise me, but to in
fact
heartlessly
deceive me!”
At that point all were speechless. They
did in fact hang their varied heads as if they
might
be attending a funeral instead of the bizarre wedding they had prepared for.
The
room
was now totally silent until…
“There she is!” Tesla cried out as he shot
a quick look off to a little bump-out side
window
box just above his mahogany roll top desk. “And there, right on time as usual,
was
Princess Penelope!”
The others in the ‘wedding party’
performed an almost choreographed turn to
witness
the alabaster pigeon pacing and pecking as she stared back at them from the
window
with a dubious goggle-eyed gaze.
“You see my fine un-feathered friends,
Penelope is an English messenger pigeon, a
homing
pigeon if you will,” Tesla said softly as if he was now completely comforted by
the
abrupt arrival of his feathered femme. “She is in fact completely snow white in
color
as are many of her genus. Now I am quite certain that that was what
preponderated
your semi-honest mistake in her identification. I should tell you that
I
have secretly been working on her electro-static brain waves with our
alternating
current
Dynamo Electric Device for the last year or so. I have managed to vastly
increase
and refine her appendage and ambulatory skills. I am having absolutely
amazing
results so far. My Pen is now a truly amazing bird my friends.”
The entire groups’ eyes were wide open
with astonishment. Their mouths now
formed
puckering holes not unlike the entrances to a cluster of ‘birdhouses’. They
were
stunned at all this to say the least.
Never the less and be all that as it may
be,” Tesla now proclaimed with a cheery
smile.
“I now do declare the matrimonial ceremony officially underway.”
“Very well then,” the parsimonious parson
announced with measured jubilance, “
let
the bride in and we shall begin the service.”
They all turned
and made their way over to the window box. Tesla carefully pinched
open the little hatch.
“Hey, there’s a note…a message
attached to its... her leg!” Caputra announced.
“Hmm,” from a curious Tesla as he
unclipped the tiny paper scroll. And, just before
he unrolled it, there was a
white explosion of flapping wings and feathers as Princess
Penelope flew off like a
shot.
“Wow! She flew the coop!” black beard shouted
as they watched her fly off into
the sun.
“Read the message my son,” from the
pusillanimous priest.
Tesla positioned a pair of delicate
pince-nez glasses on the bridge of his prominent
nose.He soon dropped his
hands and then stared down at the pigeon dropping stained
carpet.
“What does it say Mr. Tesla?” from an
astonished Caputra.
['Good-bye Nikky. I found
another more my type on a statue in Central Park']
___ The End ___
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