Sparky Soars

 

By Steve Church

This is one small step for man but one giant leap for canines, thought an elated Sparky.  He had finally, against all odds, conquered gravity. Sparky, the one eyed, flea chewed, Blue Heeler from the plains of Colorado had accomplished what had eluded the greatest minds in the history of the world, un-propelled flight...and to think...his brother Spike was still working on the mechanics of the screen door.

 This was gonna surprise the Hell out of Vern Johnson, his master & the stinking proprietor of Sparky’s home, The No Hope Goat Ranch. Vernon had thought Sparky stupid, called him worthless and dumber than dirt on several occasions. Little did Vern Johnson know that this worthless mutt had been working for years on the theory of relativity and now in control of one of the greatest minds in history had solved the riddle of meta-physical gravitation.

“Who’s stupid now Vernon.” grinned the air-born hound.

Now, Blue Heelers, on a worldly level of intelligence rate somewhere between a Jack-a-Lope & a soap dish, so it remains quite a surprising series of consequences that put the dusty mutt in this position at all.

 Sparky had first developed his theory of levitation years prior, when a drunken Vernon had turned the pick-up truck out from under a non-suspecting Sparky, launching him into enough air-time to give the dog occasion for speculation. Sparky had lost an eye landing that first flight but the feeling of breaking free of his earthly bondage and soaring on down that country lane had changed the young pup’s life. Since the great pick-up launch Sparky had practiced endlessly, leaping from the back porch, the shed roof and finally the barns hayloft. A short vertical journey that had netted two sprained paws and the barnyard suicide watch. He had leapt from the chicken coop, the backs of goats, & the windmill, each time collecting more data from his time spent in the atmosphere. Each attempt brought him closer to his theory.

 

 He had heard somewhere that if you tied a thousand monkeys to a thousand typewriters eventually one would type a glossy monthly so he figured that with all the brains in all the world ticking away day after day the odds were one of them would discover this elusive thing called levitation. It just could happen to be a Blue Heeler from east Colorado. Stranger things had happened, although he couldn’t be sure of to whom...or where.

 It had all started to click on an annual trip to the county fair when the young hound spotted his first helium balloon.

“Physics, really.” He muttered to himself. “Simply a matter of one matter being lighter than another matter, matter of fact.”

For days afterward he lay on the back porch contemplating Einstein’s work on the theory of relativity...

“YOU STUPID MUTT!!” Vern would interrupt “Git out thar and git dem goats in here...you aint got the brains God gave a mouse dropping!!”

“It was simply a matter of restructuring ones molecular make-up and of course there was that little issue of earths magnetic pull...if you could only re-magnetize your DNA for attraction to a celestial body....”

The concept went round Sparky's head like a caged weasel as he plodded behind the reeking goats.

 Then one star splattered night a simple twist of fate fell into Sparky’s lap...or yard as it was, in the form of a tiny chunk of meteorite. The hound breathed long and hard of the strange rock until he was able to focus his magnetic pull toward the planet Pluto.

 Sparky was ready, his launch pad would be the old abandoned drive-in theater at the edge of town.  Well aware of the consequences of being seen he took every precaution to assure his solitude. He realized that if this power fell into the hands of the Republicans he would be the next secret weapon. Forget the Blue Angles, it would be the Blue Heelers, Stealth Sparky, He’d be on his way to Baghdad, levitating Al Gore as the first smart bomb to be dropped on Saddam’s head, or locked away at Los Alamos instructing the country’s finest minds on his epic breakthrough. The ramifications were staggering. Travel by mind control, would mean every fuel known to man would immediately become worthless. Of course that would mean every heavy weight from George Bush to Dwayne down at Jiffy Lube would just as soon see Sparky fry. The very economic structure of the world lay on the Heelers hunched shoulders. As he crouched for his historic spring into space, he realized this would very well re-write history, as fossil fuel became extinct, pollution non-existence. Sparky’s tiny brain would become more valuable than the stock exchange.... worth more than a billion barrels of crude. His muscles tensed, whiskers twitched as the possibilities of un-limited space travel passed before his one good eye. The Heeler realized with this power he could simply think himself to new planets, new solar systems, new dimensions that mere mortal minds could not even grasp. What new worlds would Sparky encounter, what strange & wonderful beings waited the brilliant dogs arrival. He’d be a God.... Dog God, from the planet earth.

 “Git Them goats, hey Vern?” He mumbled to himself and with every cell of energy directed and very fiber of millions of years of canine evolution, and his good eye focused.... Sparky leapt into space. 

 

It was just before midnight when the phone started ringing out at the No Hope Goat Ranch. Vernon fumbled for the receiver.

 “What the Hell...?”

“Vernon? Crackled a voice on the other end. “This is Sheriff Mcduff down at the police dept.”

 “Jeeze Mac what’s up?”

 “Well yer dog.... Sparky is it?…. Anyway he’s been spotted down at the drive in theater. Been down there about 6 hours now just leaping in the air. Looks like he mighta lost his mind or sumthin.’

“Lost his mind? Heck Mac that dog aint got a mind to lose...he’s dumber than dirt.... but thanks.”