The Maintenance Man

The black hole had exploded from inside out. Instead of sucking everything into it, it propelled dead stars, stardust, asteroids, meteors, and tornado like storms into the milky way. They were the leftovers of days long gone, but now they caused a domino effect that would set time and space off kilter. As the biggest dead star hit the sun causing an even bigger explosion which not only killed the sun, but sent Mercury, Mars, and all the other planets rolling. The planets scattered like marbles across the floor in a child’s game. No direction, only chaos.

Suddenly, an old man climbed out of the black whole. He sat on the moon and looked down on the earth. He was surprised, it had not moved from its orbit. “This is fascinating,” As he looked around, and looked back at the planet. “Let me see, things a little closer,” he mumbled to himself. He took out a magnifying glass. “Awe…” is all the man said and smiled. He got up and walked to where the sun had previously been. “I’m going to need another one of the heaters, those aren’t easy to come by.” He walked for three steps more and looked again at the rearrangement of the plants and stars. “Oh dear, I am afraid things have really been messed up this time. I am not sure I can fix this. It seems like my planets have rolled out of this universe into the next.” 

The old man jumped as an old woman climbed out of the black hole next. “Henry, what did I say about playing with the atoms and protons, and neutrons on a Saturday? Did I not say it would bring you bad luck? Haven’t I warned you about what our ancestors said?”

“Like five hundred and fifty-three thousand times!” said Henry back. Groaning, and looking at his wife in dismay. “Ethel, I think you might have been right this time.”

“Of course, I was right, now the circuit box is blown. I cannot fix tonight’s dinner. I am afraid, you have a lot of work to do, in a little bit of time, if you want dinner on time tonight, “Ethel complained and climbed back into the black hole.

“Ha, “thought Henry, “There is no time right now. There is no gravity. The only reason Earth is not moving, is…” Strangely enough, Henry did not know why the earth was not moving. He took his magnifying glass back out and walked over to Earth and looked again at an ocean like beautiful marble of blue and green with a pepper of sand running through it. “My favorite,” the old man whispered.

Earth’s atmosphere had gone hazy. The buildings stood, but the inhabitants were staring up at the clouds and wondered at the purple and black and blue mist above them. Stars were falling and landing in the lakes and ponds, and both oceans, but as they did, they did not explode, but fizzled out and screamed, “Oh, that smarts.” No humans were hurt in the process, and the fish and the other water animals jumped out in surprise and suddenly began to breathe oxygen on land. People of course stared in disbelief, especially when the octopuses jumped out of the Atlantic and claimed, “It must be the end of the world. I better find a vehicle to get back to the home planet.”

One enthusiastic reporter ran around the Great Lakes of Michigan and cried, “The end of time has come. I can think of at least four musical predictions about this time, but we better concentrate on that eye!” He pointed above him.

Instantly, all the television watchers looked out their windows in fear. Indeed, a giant eye floated in the sky and their scream pierced Henry’s ears and knocked Henry over.

“I really did it this time,” Henry scratched his head, as he watched Earth move out of its orbit. It rolled away. Like the ball in a pinball machine. It bounced off Mars, then Venus, then Pluto and three unknown planets in the next universe. It kept going. Henry could hear one of the inhabitants complaining in what Earth residents would call gibberish, but on that planet, it was something more significant, like cussing. Henry’s ears were hurting. He preferred that people keep their negative comments to themselves.

Henry followed the Earth to see where it landed. As he did so, he noticed how it was darker in outer space. He was doing math in his head and thinking of how long it would take to fix things. In normal human years, it would last a lifetime, but in Henry’s time, he thought it may take him say two or three hours, which is unless he was sidetracked. Sure enough, as he thought that, the neighbor, a Mr. McGuff, came out of his house in space, a black hole, which functioned quite well.

“Henry, we need to talk about property lines. Rolling your planets into my universe, crosses those. You know the penalty,” Mr. McGuff said with a smile.

“You got it, George,” Henry sighed, “I will have Ethel bake you up a dozen chocolate chip cookies and a pitcher of lemonade. Will there be anything else you be needing?” Henry stood a bit impatient to get on with his task at hand.

“Yes, this time, your planets have caused havoc on at least three of mine. Can you spare three sparkplugs of max watt energy to fix them? Maybe say gracious words over the souls of those who are living them. Their anxiety and stress levels probably have gone up,” McGuff sighed.

“Yes, I can do that,” Henry smiled. He reached into his pocket and handed Mr. McGuff three of his sparkplugs, which contained magical maximum energy used for fixing planets. He then closed his eyes, and said, “Dear Maker of All Things, and Energies, please heal these inhabitants of George’s planets. Calm their troubled souls and give them peace. I messed up again. I know you are very forgiving. Thank you. Amen.” … The two neighbors shook hands and Henry waved goodbye and walked over to where the planets had rolled. He picked up Mercury, Earth, Mars, Pluto, and all the other planets and put with in their perspective boxes and put them in the pocket of his overalls. He sprinkled them with magical stardust, so the inhabitants on Earth, and on the other planets, that only Henry and the Maker knew about, so they could breathe. The inhabitants would be in a temporary coma, so they would think they were just dreaming, and not alarmed and become disoriented. He straightened the neighboring planets in George’s universe and went on his way. - He knew George would fix whatever he had done wrong on those planets, as Ethel would make sure the cookies and lemonade were on the way to him the next day. George would be incredibly happy. (George’s wife did not have Ethel’s recipe and wanted to have it but would settle for receiving the cookies and lemonade with grace.)

On the maintenance man’s way back to the empty spot where the Sun had been, he stopped at a junkyard, in O’Ryan’s Belt. He sorted through dead planets and such until he found what he was looking for, a little old man, Mister O’Riley. He was the keeper of the junk, and he was old, soon his life would be up, and he would pass on to the Great Beyond. – “Do you have any heaters in your pile” Henry asked.

Mister O’Riley scratched his redhead. His green eyes stared up at the giant of Henry and said, “It’s going to cost you.”

Henry looked down at the little man, with the big attitude, and said, “How much?”

“Three dozen chocolate chip cookies and two gallons of lemonade and one gold coin, “smiled Mister O’Riley.

Henry scratched his forehead, “Luckily Ethel likes to cook. As for the gold coin, well it is my last one.” He pulled a small gold coin out of his pocket and handed it to the Irish man and watched as he threw it in his pot, which was overflowing already. Henry watched as the keeper of universe’s junkyard pulled out a heater from somewhere in his jacket.

As Mr. O’Riley handed the heater to Henry, he said,” When you get to where you want to turn it on, hit the button on the right side of the square and it will go from square shape to a circle and grow as big as you want. When it gets to the desired size, hit it again, and it will stop growing and heat up. After that, I would not touch it again or you will burn your hands.”

Henry said goodbye to the keeper. He took the heater to its original spot and pushed the button. When it had returned to its original height, he pushed the button again and moved one hundred feet from it. He was already getting a good tan and did not want to turn red. The ball may have been smaller than Henry, but it packed a punch.

Henry put all the planets in his universe back in their perspective spots and turned them on their axis and made sure each one of them was working well. Using magical sparkplugs, he made sure each planet’s inhabitants were taken out of their coma, and if there were inhabitants on the planet, he erased their memories of the current universal incident with pixie dust he got from his wife’s garden.

As for Earth, he saved it for last. Although he had fixed it and put it back in its place and such, he still had not figured out why gravity had held it longer than say when all the other planets had lost their bearings once the heater, or the Sun, had gone out.

He took out his magnifying glass again, but made himself and it invisible this time, so he would not have to spread the pixie dust again on the inhabitants and observed for a moment or two what was taking place on the Earth. Neutrons, protons, and cellular life were invisibly holding hands in the atmosphere. They were singing and dancing and were unified. Henry could feel the love the energy was filling the little planet. With positive vibes, the energy signaled the water beings to return to the lakes, and oceans, and streams, and any water body they may have come from. The inhabitants, whose memories had been erased, were now in their perspective places: at home, at work, at church, the grocery store, or wherever they were last doing before Henry’s explosion.

Henry looked at the core of the planet. Inside the circle, was a red heart. It was beating. Henry was inspired to suddenly look up, and as he did, He saw eyes looking down on him. As Henry looked back down, he saw for the first time, feet. He realized for the first time; he was smaller than he thought. His Maker stood before him and smiled. He said, “Thanks.”

Henry understood in that moment that he was not just a maintenance person, but someone a part of someone else, and that he mattered.

Although only two or three hours had passed for Henry, only two or three minutes had passed for the Maker. The Maker was glad that his system was back in order.