PLANET MAGAZINE

Illustration: “1937 Lucky Shot” © 2005 by Romeo Esparrago

Travis was lounging on the couch, gnawing on a carrot for breakfast, and watching the President smash all the chandeliers in the White House with a sledgehammer. By the angle of the sun pouring in the window, he knew it had to be nine-thirty already, but he didn’t feel like getting up. Besides, there wasn’t going to be anyone else at the lab to fuss at him for being late. So he kicked back and watched the Prez move from the Oval Office to the Blue Room to the Lincoln bedroom, smashing 200-year old crystal to flinders, ripping electrical sockets out of walls.

Then he got up and put his own sledge through the TV screen.

The TV had been one of the few things left in the house Travis hadn’t smashed. He’d always had a weakness for ESPN. That network had signed off the air three days before with a broadcast of the demolition of Yankee Stadium. Babe Ruth’s great-great-great-granddaughter had done the honors, pushing the button that brought down the house that her famous ancestor had, at least metaphorically, built.

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