The Wolves...

Tesla’s America
By Joshua G. Pollack
Metatron the Divine Herald
I sit on high, the Divine herald of G-d, proclaiming his glory, narrating his Divine Comedy from the celestial partition. The winds are blowing from the east, a child wails in the distance. In front of the hearth sits two, one Nicolas Tesla drunk and despondent, two Mark Twain, the setting is Niagara Falls the turn of the century.

Nicola Tesla
I sold it you know

Mark Twain
Sold what

Tesla
The Death Ray, for 75 dollars and the promise to use it only for good, those Martians were persuasive. It seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Metatron
A wolf’s cry is heard in the distance, curdling blood, a short silence will be observed.

Twain
Do your hear the wolves

Tesla
Edison is on the prowl again, I can feel it, scheming in his New Jersey fortress, like a Walachian Vampire transplanted to the east coast, like Dracula…that was a very good book you know.

Twain
Thank you

Tesla
What?

Twain
Nothing

Tesla
I invented the alternating current you know

Twain
I invented the Atom Bomb you know

Tesla
What?

Twain
The things you can do on a sunny Sunday afternoon when the Curries are out, I was so bored.

Tesla
You know they say by the end of the twentieth century all known diseases will be cured by electricity.

Twain
Who needs to write books when you can harness the power of the Atom…

Tesla
The Tesla coil will be the savior of this new age of mankind…

Twain
Jules Vern ain’t got nothin on me

Tesla
Edison wear’s women’s clothing, did you know that

Metatron
Twain looks down dejectedly, fiddling with his thumbs wondering what he can say.

Twain
Yes, Yes I did know that

Tesla
Figures

Twain
What is that supposed to mean, it’s purely a comfort issue, and you’ll see in ten years everyone will be doing it

Tesla
Just another case of liberal reinformation

Metatron
The word Reinformation was first used in 1454 by the Venetian inventor Reduxious Informentii who saw the transformation of Haga Sophia and believed that information itself was being reinvented. This is of course impossible but it was a fun idea to play with like a mental bauble of questionable reality. Of course a definition for this impossibly constructed word remained elusive. So some believed that Reinformation would fade into histories scholarly depths, those people are called retards, we have special homes for them. The rest of us knew that Reinformation would once again raise its nebulous and improbable head. This is just one example of it.

Twain
What does Reinformation mean?

Tesla
You have asked a mouthful, to know it would be to read Webster’s dictionary and “ Get it” , to cry when somebody said “no, let me explain it again” knowing that the original explanation died in its birthing so future explanations could live, to change the term Reinformation into a continually changing Noun, Adverb, Adjective, verb, and dangling modifier. Its very nature, when understood, would be change. To know it is to break the surly bonds of human logic and touch the face of G-d… and then to have your hand crumble to dust as you are unclean and unfit.
Twain
Well, gee Mister Peabody thanks for the explanation

Tesla
What did you say?

Twain
The cursed dog, why does he torment me, him and his boy, only I can see him, studying me with his spectacled eyes, watching, studying me for weakness, judging my soul!!!

Metatron
They look at each other with distrust and hate and fear swimming through the room, as the ung-dly quiet begins to settle in, and the cold air circulates

Twain
G-d almighty it is getting cold, I am dieing, when I die I will not be mourned by loved ones but by my critics and detractors, knowing I can do no more harm

Tesla
When I die I shall not be mourned or remembered, I will not be in the history books with Bell or Edison, my only Eulogy will be by the G-men as they rifle through my papers looking for secret inventions and insights, cursing me for my lack of Posthumous ingenuity

Twain
Yours is worst

Tesla
Maybe I should go over Niagara in a barrel; at least my death would bring me fame

Twain
It is winter, it is frozen

Tesla
All the more crazy, the kind of quirky end that gets people like me into history books

Twain
I came to lecture

Tesla
I came to install my electric dynamo to harness the power of the Niagara

Twain
Yours is better

Tesla
You know when you said “did you hear the wolves” and I was silent, I lied

Twain
What?

Tesla
I hear the wolves every day of my life.

Twain
Me to

Metatron
The two geniuses’ loose themselves in the night fading to darkness as the Niagara swallows them in its undefended boarders. Twain would go onto die, his Atomic research unaccredited, and Tesla would die forgotten, and G-d laughs on high at the absurdity of it all, a long wail of a laugh, not unlike the cries of wolves.

[Close Curtains]
[Open Curtains with Metatron in trench coat]

Metatron
Telegram for a Mister Tesla, that’s a strange one Russian?

Tesla
Yugoslavian, who are you? What Telegram?

Metatron
Too many questions, here is the telegram, I must be going or no one will know what’s going on.
[Removes Trench coat and returns to his pedestal]
And the mysterious telegraphs men disappeared from the tavern.

Tesla
What? What is going on?

Twain
Not drinking men are you Tesla. Any good drinking American knows you open the letter and only question the circumstances if the contents are negative; I think that one comes from the Bible.

Tesla
[Laconically]
The American Bible.

Twain
Yes, the American Bible written by Jesus smith in Washington DC on July 4th 30 AD right before he took a stage coach to Jerusalem, that American Bible. Open the letter.

Tesla
Telegram
[Opens and reads the “Telegram”]
Yes, Yes! MY experimental blood test on the Edison samples came back, three different types, he is a vampire, or worst Windango…