Rebekah’s Relative

It had taken Rebekah almost two hours to drive from Colton, Oregon to Covallis, Oregon.

She stood on the sidewalk in front of her uncle’s shop, wagging her head as she muttered to herself, “Sheesh.”

The extremely large shop window was boarded up with sheets of pegboard. An orange-colored sign announced the name of the shop, “ZERO GEE.”

Rebekah sidled left to the door, entered the shop, a chime sounded.

Rebekah’s uncle was to the right, standing behind a counter, talking to a customer. Rebekah’s uncle didn’t look up, was engaged in an animated conversation with the customer.

Slowly, Rebekah walked down the left-hand aisle, the wall of which was festooned with many hundreds of blister packs and small baggies of electronic parts –- resistors, capacitors, switches, relays and the like. At the end of the aisle she turned to the right, then walked up the center aisle towards the counter. The center aisle contained more packed electronic parts.

The customer left. Rebekah’s uncle hollered “Rebekah! Good to see you.”

Rebekah went to the counter, said, “I asked my Dad a question the other day and he laughed, told me to come talk to you about it.”

Uncle Chuck replied, “Let’s hear your question.”

Rebekah then said, “I wonder about all this talk of the Apollo 11 moon landing videos being faked. What can you tell me?”

“Quite a bit, actually. Do you know who faked the videos?”

“Nope.”

Uncle Chuck smirked as he announced, “The Government of the United States of America."

“Really? Why?”

Uncle Chuck seemed amused, replied “The original video, in its background showed space aliens who were watching the astronauts. Over the medical channel, which was secure and encoded, the astronauts announced the presence of the aliens. The original video feed, which had a time delay at NASA, the Government modified it to block out the images of the aliens, then fed the video to the TV networks as live.”

Rebekah took a step back from the counter as she said, “O-o-k-k-kay?”

Uncle Chuck continued with, “Shortly afterward, the Government made the fake video. By the way, you should ask your Dad, who was in the Air Force at the time, about United States Air Force bases on the moon, which were there even before the Apollo program.”

Rebekah and Uncle Chuck chatted for a bit about family, then Rebekah drove back to Colton. She had lots to think about during the long drive.

THE END

C. E. "Chuck" Gee misspent his youth at various backwater locales within the states of Oregon and Alaska.

Chuck has been a logger, factory worker, infantryman (Vietnam war draftee, 1968), telecommunications technician, volunteer fireman and EMT, light show roady, businessperson.

Retired from the telecommunications/electronics industries and also a disabled veteran, Chuck now writes Science Fiction.

His blog is at https://kinzuakid.blogspot.com

Comment on this story in the Aphelion Forum

Return to Aphelion's Index page.