Smiles to Go Read Online Free Page A

night it receives a signal from the National Institute of Standards and Technology Atomic Clock inFort Collins, Colorado. The Atomic Clock is accurate to within ten billionths of a second(0.000000001 sec).
    For some reason I looked back at the clock tower. It’s one of those old-fashioned clocks, with Roman numerals instead of Arabic numbers. Suddenly on the right shoulder of the ten(X), I saw a tiny flash, like a glint from the sun. But when I looked up at the sky, it was gray, nothing but clouds.
     
    Tonight Monopoly will be at my house. Mi-Su will bring the pizza, anchovies and extra sauce for me, extra pepperoni for her. And a small regular for Tabby. I’ll tell her not to do that, that Tabby is just a little kid, that she already thinks she’s a grown-up and treating her like one of us will just make her worse. She’ll ignore me and give my sister the pizza. BT will be late. Tabby will race upstairs, go crazy over him. He’ll breeze down to the basement den and call ahead: “Gimme four hotels on Park Place!” He’ll buy everything he lands on. He’ll chuckle when he gets a railroad.
    Tabby will cheer him on. Within an hour he’ll be wiped out. Tabby will attack him. They’ll wrestle. She’ll bring him a book, probably an adult murder mystery. He’ll spend the rest of the night reading it to her. He’ll leave out the bad words.
    PD16
    S unday morning. Church. Boring, as usual. But as my father says, it’s money in the bank. It’s the ticket. The bridge. It’s how to get from Here to There. From Here to Forever.
    There’s always a pencil in the pew. Stubby, yellow, like the ones they give you at miniature golf to keep score with. As the service dragged on, I checked off the items in the program: Call to Worship, Hymn of Praise, Prayer of Adoration, Prayer of Confession, Assurance of Pardon, etc., etc. Then came the dreaded sermon—talk about Forever! This was the third Sunday since the proton died in Yellowknife, and Rev. Mauger hadn’t said a word about it.Neither has anyone else. The world doesn’t seem to care about the end of itself.
    The reverend’s lullaby droned on. I decided to amuse myself by writing down Mr. Sigfried’s number. Across the top of the church program, down the right-hand side, across the bottom and halfway up the left side:

    I stared at the number. It made no sense. It’s beyond gazillions. There’s not even a name for it. It’s the number of years from now when everything will be gone. If I could live that long, I would see Rev. Mauger’s pulpit evaporate, proton by proton.
    The number was making me woozy. So I did what I sometimes do when I feel lost intime and space—I began writing down my famous (to me) twelve-step plan:
born
grow up
school
college (Naval Academy)
career (astronomer)
wife (blonde, named Emily, Jennifer or Ann)
kids (2)
house (four bathrooms)
car (mint condition, black 1985 Jaguar XJS/12)
retire (win senior chess tournaments)
death
Heaven (angel) (Forever)
    Except now, considering the news from Yellowknife, there’s a parade of question marks after number 12. Like, are angels made of protons? Is Heaven? If so, does this mean they won’t last forever?
    And what exactly is Heaven anyway? A thing? A place? I don’t think so. I mean, if I could look at a map of creation, there wouldn’tbe a sign saying, “Heaven—This Way.” My opinion? Heaven is a dimension, like time. Like up and down.
    I think.
    As for angels, what are they made of? Smoke? Vapor? Holograms? No. Angels are spirits, and a spirit—by definition—is non-stuff.
    I think.
    I hope.
    I turned the church program over and stared again at the unbelievable number. And risked the biggest question of all: When all this time, all these numbers go by, when the last iota of stuff in the universe—the last proton—finally winks out, will Forever still be? Does Forever continue on beyond the last zero? My answer (my prayer?): of course it does, because Forever means endless.
    So…
    If Heaven