Unfinished Work
by
David L. Smith

Snake-Hand crouched. The roar of a cave-bear broke the of the cool spring morning into a thousand fragments. Snake-hand motioned for White-Hair and Que-Ear to get on the huge rock on his left. Then he raised his spear and approached the mouth of the box canyon.

Another roar broke the stillness as the cave-bear charged him. But the bear was no match for the cunning brains and quick arms of the primitive men. Snake-Hand threw the spear in the way he got his name. The spear split the wild beast's hear, killing it. But before it fell the other two men crushed it's ugly skull with jagged rocks.

Snake-Hand was happy, for he had broken the famine of the winter and proved himself a great hunter. But it was a lucky kill, since usually several men died with the bear. If only they had far-reaching weapons to kill the small, fast game and something to keep the winter from killing so many... Suddenly, there was a loud explosion and a strange looking man appeared at their feet.

* * *

Koes Dawson was a mad scientist. He was one of the several billion men and women who had nothing to do in the 21st century. He was also an antique weapon collector, a doctor, and a carver.

Right now he had finished a machine that did nothing he knew of because he was a mad scientist and didn't explain what he had made. He hoped that it was something useful, so he could get some more credits for more psycoanalyst's services which everyone in an ultra-modern civilization needed.

He got into the machine and closed the switch. If it killed him he wouldn't care because then he would be released from the covenant boringness of his daily life. As soon as he closed the switch, he felt like he was being torn apart. "Good," he thought, "Maybe it could be used as a reducing machine," Then he blacked out.