The Kaleidoscope Read Online Free

was no longer a safe sanctuary. The death knells tolled, prophesying the end of the building whose bones creaked with more sad conviction than Walter’s.
    While living downstairs in the structure that had been around since De Mille directed epics beneath the Hollywoodland sign, Walter had persevered through his own endless trials, which took longer because of his equipment—an outdated computer, laughable to programmers pecking and coding elsewhere in the world, and a temperamental Dremel he’d found in a second-hand shop years ago. If he’d toiled in a state-of-the-art laboratory, his invention might have been ready years earlier.
    Forced into hiding and sacrificing everything precious to him, Walter had accomplished something the rest of the tech-world vigorously debated was impossible. He’d worked as quickly as his limited resources allowed, but he finally reached his goal.
    Now the prototype awaited one final step, and it would be ready for real-world testing. A few more tweaks and the soft launch of which he’d dreamed was within his grasp. He unwound the protective length of fabric from the metal tube and exhaled a breath of adoration and pride. He’d polished the creation until it glimmered in the rays probing down through the high window into his basement workroom-slash-bedroom. He sighted down the shaft. His masterpiece, his swan song, was almost ready for the world.
    One more piece of the puzzle, and the technology anticipated, even feared, would be born. If he’d calculated correctly, and Walter was meticulous about calculations, the day’s mail should contain the gem he’d saved and scraped for. Every tip, handout, or penny literally scraped from the gutter had gone into a jar, and last week he’d exchanged the sum for a cashier’s check and placed the order. If this final trial didn’t work, he’d lose everything he’d slaved over. His ideas were running out, his home was about to be razed, and what made the urgency even more crucial, he sensed “they” were about to discover his hiding place.
    Flipping the wall calendar over his workbench, Walter circled a date two weeks hence. That would give him sufficient time to install the final part, to test, and make note of his achievement. Perhaps even enjoy it himself before he turned it over to the one who would carry it to the world, who could safely deliver the technology where it would do the most good. It was time to plan the handoff.
    The sun’s rays pouring from a high window warmed and loosened Walter’s back muscles. The glint on the shaft of metal, as thick as a Cuban cigar, the length of a number two pencil, gave him more than a few moments of pride he’d not felt since the birth of his long-lost son.
    He held the eyepiece up and sighted, spinning the dial. It caught and stuck in place. He wrapped it once again in the cloth, gently rested the device between the jaws of the vise and slowly cranked it shut, stopping at precisely the point where the Kaleidoscope would be held firmly in place, but not harmed by the firm grip. He filed and sprayed, working over the delicate prize until the dial spun like butter and the magnificent colors fell into place.
    A freak hailstorm, or something, had damaged the church’s stained glass depiction of Christ the Shepherd. Bits of glass had flown into the sanctuary, and when he swept up the damage, he had an idea.
    “May I keep the broken bits?” Walter had asked Father Tucker, glass bits tinkling in his dustpan.
    Father Tucker agreed. He gave his handyman freedom in his off hours, and carte blanche access to his office computer to research the project he had fiddled with for years. “Perhaps you could make these as keepsakes for the devoted,” Father Tucker had suggested when he saw the Kaleidoscope beginning to take shape. “God has blessed you with a unique talent.”
    So Walter had sifted through the shards and laid them out in shades of garnet red, amber flesh tones from the Lord’s cheek, and