MAURETANIA PRESENTS:

Third Stage and Planetfall

A "Monitor" story by Chris Reynolds

A STORY ABOUT GETTING UP - BUT ALSO ABOUT LEAVING THINGS BEHIND

Copyright © Chris Reynolds 2012.

Part 1. FIRST STAGE

This story is just a dream because, as a child, Monitor
rarely did anything except watch the animals,
particularly his favourites, the sun chicks.

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He also watched TV with his grandfather.

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So there was TV,

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There was the town where they lived,

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And, in this dream, there was the rocket.

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They immediately went aboard. Inside, it was like
climbing up to an attic.

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His grandfather fired up the engines.

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And straight away, they were above the ground, rising.

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Monitor looked back.

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The rocket burned fuel as it rose into the air.

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Then Monitor's grandfather vanished, as
the first stage of the rocket fell away.

Part 2. SECOND STAGE

Alone now, Monitor wondered if Five Miles High
was very far away from home.

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Then, Monitor's father was there. He explained how the temperature
changed as they climbed...

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How gravity vanished, although momentum
remained the same.

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The second stage dropped away and Monitor's
father said goodbye.

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Part 3. THIRD STAGE
AND PLANETFALL

High above the stratosphere, the third stage of the rocket grew cold.
Everything was strange. Time stopped in black holes and space
expanded among the stars.

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Monitor ached to return to the familiar world
he had known.

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So he swung back down to the past, dropped through
the clouds, to meet himself there as a younger child.

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But this old world now held a monster that ruined the
land, and dragged its creator around in a metal cage.

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So Monitor reeled himself back up to the rocket...
Only to find that it had become homely and charming...

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PLANETFALL: And Monitor met his friends the animals again.
Now grown up into intelligent beings.

But he found no sun-chicks. They were not here. He had loved them so much,
he had wished that they would never change.

THE END