"Don't Look Now" - January 2, 2025
The ability to shed light on unrelenting truth on the past is a dangerous thing, indeed...
Every Thursday, Silver Gecko Publishing highlights one of my stories, either a work of short fiction, a novel, or an audiobook. This week’s selection is the short story “Please Keep This Door Locked at All Times,” from the anthology COSMIC TALES, available on Kindle and in paperback.
This story goes back to my days in small press genre publishing, and it was one of the earlier stories I sold. It also caught the eye of a Russian woman working in the United States who published her own magazine for Russian ex-pats in the U.S. She translated this story (and a couple others of mine at the time) and published them. It gave me a bit of a thrill since I was now officially translated into another language.
No, I have no idea if the translation was done well… and also I wasn’t ever 100% sure I wasn’t some cog in a weird 90s-era spy game. Probably not. My life isn’t nearly that interesting.
However, there is another humorous side to this story’s background, which I recount in the endnotes to COSMIC TALES, and I will share with you here:
I was working as a textbook editor at a small company in Columbus. I needed quite a few names for such a short story, so I used the name of the vice president of our company. He had a name that just sounded appropriate for the corrupt politician. So I used it in the story and didn’t give it another thought...
…Until it sold. Only then did I realize that I had just used my boss’s name in a questionable light.
I didn’t want to get fired, so I sent an email to the magazine’s editor requesting that he change the name to Congressman Howard Sherman, which he did.
My boss was never the wiser. (And no, I’m not going to tell you his actual name.)
Finally, since this is a rather short story, only about 1200 words, it is presented here in its entirety. Happy New Year!
-Kevin Carr
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Illustration by xanmagena (@xanmagena-674943) from Pixabay
Don’t Look Now by Kevin Carr
If it had been a cloudy day in Dallas, it would have never been proven that Oswald had acted alone. But it was not cloudy, and from the evidence, there was no gun in anyone’s possession – aside from the secret service, police, and Oswald himself – within miles.
There was no one on the grassy knoll.
It had taken 257 years to come to that conclusion, and there were many more mysteries of the past to discover. Although Kennedy’s death was ancient history, it was one of the only three presidential assassination that were still discussed by popular culture. Lincoln’s was no mystery – it took place in a theater. Brubaker’s was too large for conspiracy controversy – a miniature atomic weapon detonated during Super Bowl CXXIV in the Virgin Islands and only one terrorist group claiming blame. But Kennedy’s was still discussed with outlandish conspiracy theory, and the subject was still not closed.
So Elliot Russ decided that absolute proof of the truth of the Kennedy assassination would be the best demonstration of his new process to literally look into the past.
I. POLITICIAN
Congressman Howard Sherman turned off the monitor screen after watching the bird’s-eye view of the Kennedy assassination for the third time. There was no doubt that one gun did the damage. Although he had seen clips of the ancient home movie footage of the death of the president, he had never seen one from the sky.
In fact, there should be no footage from the sky.
No aircraft was permitted to fly over that city at that time, and satellite footage was not a reality back in 1963. He did not know exactly how this film was obtained, but he knew it was indeed a harbinger of many problems ahead...
...problems better left unsolved.
Sherman picked up a written release accompanying the past footage and quickly scanned it. After completion, he sighed. If the process was correct as described, it could prove disastrous. Until now, only satellite photos were attainable from the moment they happened. Never had there been a device to take aerial shots from the past.
A ripple of fear would run through Washington and shatter the three major political parties. All had their proverbial skeletons in closets… all were in danger. Aerial shots from the past simply could not be covered up. Any illegal action that had occurred open to the sky could – and eventually would – be discovered. Any past action outside could be witnessed. Conspiracies could be uncovered... corpses long hidden away could be found... truncated loose ends could be retied...
If Elliot Russ had indeed found a way to look into the past, too much would come out in too little time.
II. SCIENTIST
The first thing that Maria Hunt thought when she saw Russ’s video was of eventually seeing a thunder lizard. If the past of over 250 years could be delved into, then surely farther past – say 150 million years – could be viewed. So much could be learned! So much could be discovered! Theories that had only been proposed could now be proven! The mass extinction could be viewed in small, easy steps!
But soon Maria thought of other problems. Perhaps it would be better if the cameras peering through hyperspace-time holes hundreds of millions of years in the past would not be able to snap the ultra high resolution, ultra magnified views.
Paleontology would not die. That was not what frightened Maria. New careers could easily be built on the new evidence.
What frightened Maria was the why of evolution being discovered. Many theories had been offered up in the past years. Some of them were accepted, and many were either rejected or disproved. But one theory opened up years ago that only seemed to be a crackpot’s dream had lingered for over two hundred years.
The proving of any evolutionary history may cause shocks throughout the scientific community, but those shocks would hardly travel far from that realm. However, one theory would definitely run icy fear through many non-science people. Although Maria believed the theory to be utterly ridiculous, there was always that small chance that it could be true.
Surely it would be disproved by Elliot Russ’s new invention... but what if it was not? What if, by some fractional chance, it was true? What if we were not alone? What if fate was not the only things giving direction to the replicating deoxyribonucleic acids?
Surely the presence of unseen and uncontrollable hands over the course of the human species would be too much for some to handle. No one would want to admit it, but with the evidence that Elliot Russ could show the world, it may not be deniable. The rape of the human gene pool by an unseen, stealth hand would be on display for all.
Actually, Maria knew that the scientific chances of this theory being true were infinitesimal at best...
...but she silently asked herself that if it were true, could she ever let it be known?
III. FATHER
Father Joseph Yale turned off the video. He was happy for the long dead hero that his assassination case was now solved, but he saw the problems in the means. He knew the science behind the method. He had no doubt it was sound. Small high technology cameras aimed through the spacetime rips could easily snap footage of the Earth. With high enough magnification and resolution, the images of the past could be viewed, snatched from the reflected light of years ago from the surface of the planet.
On the first thought of peering into the past, the priest was ecstatic. For centuries, the parish had dreamed of viewing the face of Christ. Now it could be a reality. They could now see the feeding of the five thousand! They could now watch the creation of the miracles! They could now witness the transfiguration! They could now view the crucifixion! But most exciting, they could rejoice at the sight of the resurrection!
But before he could get too caught up in the romance, Father Yale faced the fact that sometimes faith was far stronger than reality.
What if they never saw a stone roll from a cave in three days? was all he could think.
IV. INVENTOR
Elliot Russ opened his door, expecting to see the excited faces of child-like wonder on the many who had received the video this morning. Instead, he was greeted with the muzzle of a blaster.
Russ did not even have time to speak.
V. KILLER
The killer left the building quickly and hid in shadows. Clouds were the ally. The client would be pleased. After the termination of Russ’s life, the killer had destroyed all information on the inventor’s new creation. Of course the 412 copies of the video and explanation were wired across the country this morning, but that was only a demonstration. For fear of technology theft, Russ had kept all the details safely stored in his own personal files in his office.
They were not hard to find.
The inventor had expected only happiness from the nation. But, unfortunately, he made some immediate enemies in the process, and it had cost him his life.
The killer smiled leaving the scene. The ways of people were all too clear.