Legacy

What you see is what you get; or is it?

Kathryn Doyle was ninety three years old, widowed, and living currently with her daughter Colleen O’Reilly and Colleens husband Mickey O’Reilly.

Mickey, he himself that is, was always keeping an eye out for the unusual.  He would bring home some of the oddest things that he though nice looking; unfortunately he was frequently the only one in the house that thought so; but once in awhile all would admire  whatever it was.

One day Mickey found a pretty shiny brass or gold plated, not sure which, orb about the size of a softball.  It was at a garage sale and he haggled for it and got it.  It had a pretty faceted clear stone mounted in the top and several more just like it around the middle.  He brought it home and with a big grin displayed it to his wife Colleen.  She thought it was unattractive and ask him how many nips he himself had before he bought it.

However to Colleens surprise her mother Kathryn thought it was the finest thing she had ever seen, faith and begorra if she didn’t say so right out loud.  This pleased Mickey to no end you know, so he gave it to her to put on her dresser in her bedroom.  Colleen told Mickey that she supposed that he might get lucky once in awhile in his incredible finds.

Mickey being the fine fellow he was and a true Irishman, was happy his mother in law was happy; he even suspected that fact chagrinned Colleen a wee bit, and that was why he grinned very extra wide.

The weeks passed and Kathryn enjoyed the shinny orb very much; the sunlight really sparkled off the clear faceted jewel like sets.  Then one night Kathryn let out a yelp and hollered for Colleen to come.  Colleen got there to her mothers bedroom very fast.  Kathryn complained there had been a man in her room.  Needless to say none could be found.  It was chalked off as a bad dream.

Strangely enough, these so called bad dreams kept reoccurring.  No two alike; sometimes it would be two people; or someone sitting on the dresser staring at her, and once even a pig on the bed.  Mickey even suggested Kathryn check to see if the level of fluid in the Hadacol tonic bottle was going down to fast.  That was a mistake that almost got a broom taken to poor old Mickey.  In fact he had to do a fast verbal Irish Jig to avoid it. He was informed that the only nipper in the house was he himself, so there!

Then there was the insistence on Kathryn’s part that she wasn’t dreaming, she was wide awake when those spooky apparitions appeared.  Funny thing was, they always disappeared by the time anyone could answer Kathryn’s call for help.  The subject of hallucinations came up and Colleen and Mickey wondered if one or so of Kathryn’s medications might cause such things.  There were a couple of them suspect.

Then one night fairly late Kathryn called out for someone to get her a drink of water as she had a frog in her throat and her glass was empty.  Colleen got the glass and filled it and as she returned she took one step into Kathryn’s room and  let out a yelp for help, hollering there was a Leprechaun sitting on Kathryn’s bed.  The two of them were yelping like a Banshee was upon them.

Well now, all that commotion got Mickey’s attention, so much so the hair on his head stood straight up; but he came a running anyway.  After all that’s what an Irishman does.

When Mickey got there and it only took about ninety seconds, he would have been faster, but he had to put his pants on first.  Of course there was nothing to see. Mickey was none to happy about being rousted out from under his warm covers.  He was more than a wee perturbed; and he himself started sniffing Colleen to see if she’d been nipping.

Well Colleen knew exactly what Mickey was implying and she went and got her broom.  Poor Mickey spent the rest of the night in the garage having a very hard time keeping warm.  Fortunately by morning Colleen had mellowed out and Mickey at least got some breakfast.

That evening they talked a lot about the situation, and Mickey wasn’t about to say he didn’t believe either of them.  Mickey didn’t want to spend another night in the garage.  Mickey was one to be quick to offer comment, but he wasn’t totally stupid either.

Mickey hoping to put the subject to rest suggested they both sit in Kathryn’s bedroom the next few nights so that if something appeared, he’d be convinced also. After all, to an Irishman, seeing is believing even if it took a few nips to clear his vision.  Nothing happened the first two nights except no one got much sleep.  Then on the third night about eleven O’clock it happened.  A pig was prancing around the bed. Needless to say everyone was yelling including Mickey who swung a baseball bat at the pig.  It went through the pig like nothing was there, then the pig just disappeared.

Well, everyone was so un nerved that no one got any sleep the rest that night.  In the morning Mickey said whatever it was it wasn’t solid, and it wasn’t any spook either.  It was more like a projection, but not the kind that is on a screen or wall.  Very peculiar Mickey thought.

Mickey had a few nips to clear his mind and then said, aha! I bet it was a holographic projection.  But from what was the next question.  Mickey started wondering about that shiny orb he’d brought home and gave to Kathryn to put on her dresser.  He said, suppose those clear faceted jewel like sets in the orb are really lenses.  Mickey went on to say he’d seen one in a store, but it was a single lens outfit that would only make the three dimensional image about a foot high.

Mickey went and got the orb and started fiddling with it.  It wasn’t long before he figured out how to detach the base.  After he did he was astounded to find that it held a battery and had an insert able small computer chip, the kind you can have multiple pictures stored on.  It also appeared to have some sort of sensor.

Mickey put it back together and said he had no idea what made it go on and off.  But he would sit up as many nights as it took to find out.  It didn’t take long, that night as he heard his neighbor across the street coming home from the late shift, he heard his neighbors car turn into his own driveway and then the sound of his neighbors garage door going up, at the same time the projector activated and this time Abraham Lincoln was sitting on the dresser.  He wasn’t solid either, and then Mickey heard his neighbor’s garage door going down and ol Abe disappeared.

Well the mystery was solved, the neighbor’s garage door opener was acting like a remote and it activated and deactivated the beautiful orb that was really a holographic projector.

Mickey went back to the place where he’d got the orb at a garage sale and inquired.  The lady of that house told him that her late husband was always inventing things.  That yes it was a projector, but they had lost the remote he made years ago so it being unworkable, she simply sold it as an ornament.

Now that the cat was out of the bag, Mickey, Colleen, and Kathryn had a lot of fun watching the thing which they relocated to the living room coffee table and used their own garage door remote to make it work.

When they had company they would astound everyone with it.  Word got around that they had such a device and someone from a big company showed up and told Mickey they would give him a large amount of cash for it.  They said they could reverse engineer it and then manufacture many, many more.

That was very tempting, in fact that offer necessitated Mickey having a few nips to help his brain to work, once that was accomplished, he added he’d take the deal with a proviso that he get five percent royalty’s on everything they made from it.  That was agreed on.  Mickey then announced to Kathryn and Collen that they would be moving to a fine big house, and it wouldn’t be a hallucination either.