I am on the campus of a modern university; so modern in fact, that it has a satellite campus…literally. They have built an enormous space station that serves as a quiet library to study in, etc. I’ve gotten it into my head to spend the night up there and watch one of the Star Wars films. When I get to the quadrangle with the space elevator, I find a pavilion displaying an exact replica of a soviet era atomic bomb. It’s all there, but the plutonium. I’m curious to see this once top secret object. An artist/engineer has set up an elaborate machine to render the bomb in various shades of molten silver. The silver is applied by a complex robotic arm with an old flibert head paint brush clamped to the end of it. I start talking to the artist and he convinces me to go get my video camera and document the process of painting the atom bomb in shades of silver and tarnish. As I head back to my room, a terrific storm blows up and all the students scramble. I take my shoes off and walk home in the puddles. I won’t take my camera out in the rain and I’m certainly not riding up to space in eighty mph winds. I’ll just watch Star Wars at home, or better yet get blown around the campus and wade in the puddles.
