by Rob Hunter

The woman at the far end of the kaleidoscope had not been there last week, of this Simon was sure. She was naked or near enough, and dressed in diaphanous veils that left little to the imagination.

"Holy shit!" Simon Alexander breathed on the lens and gave it a wipe with his sleeve.

"I see that I have your attention..." said the woman, "...finally."

With a furtive glance to see if there was anyone watching, Simon took a closer look.

"You are carrying a beer and a bag of Cheetos," said the woman. She strode toward the kaleidoscope’s eye-piece, shedding blue veils one by one. "I'd like a beer, too. But you will have to get me out of this thing first, I think."

"You are the Virgin Mary," said Simon, who watched TV shows on unexplained phenomena.

"Perhaps. I am celebrated for my hijinks and practical jokes; appearances can be deceiving, however. Only last week I appeared covering the entire leeward face of a mountain in Brazil," she said. "Thousands came to see the miracle. Many died, trampled in the rush. Compare to this the incongruity of a grown man hiding out behind the garage with a kaleidoscope and a six-pack."

The kaleidoscope was Simon's secret; after forty-three years of marriage, his only secret. It's twisted barber pole spirals of colored metal foil pasted with stars and crescent moons reflected Mylar purples that shone like the sunglasses of a state trooper. Simon kept the kaleidoscope hidden under the eaves at the back of the garage. He had been temporarily banished from the house while Bonnie spread quilt patterns over all available surfaces. Beer and Cheetos were forbidden inside the house.

"Is this contraption yours?" said the woman. She was surrounded by a pale blue aura. "Good luck for you that I showed up in a portable apparatus."

"Then you are not the Virgin Mary." Cellophane crinkled as Simon reached into the Cheetos bag; his wife hadn't found it because he'd hidden it under the front seat of the family sedan. Dinner was hours away.

"You were expecting someone else?”

“Ah, no. I was expecting some colored glass beads.” Simon wished he had bothered to shave this morning. "It's a Boy Scout project from sixty years back. Katahdin Council, Willipaq, Maine." Simon shook the kaleidoscope. "Troop 136."

"Easy with the shaking. These Boy Scouts you speak of, they are a cloistered order? Lay brothers? And you are eating in front of me."

"Sorry." Simon popped an orange-colored salt-slathered Cheeto into his mouth. "I was hungry."

"And thirsty too, I'll warrant. I am the Princess Ackaetia Urnoous. You shall be my chosen champion. Name, please?" She jiggled.

"Simon. Simon Alexander. Princess, princess, ahh..."

"Urnoous. Princess Ackaetia Urnoous. Practice saying this. And I know all about you. I have watched you from the other end of the kaleidoscope. I call you Big Eye. Does my name not roll on the palate like a scented oil?"

"It is a first-rate name, alright." The princess was naked and lovely and that she might have a mellifluous name was not of paramount concern. "I did think you were the Virgin Mary for a minute there."

"Hardly. But in one or two negligible planetary systems I am revered as a goddess." The scope virgin struck a demure pose, eyes averted in modesty. "Hence I require champions who are trustworthy, reverent and brave. These 'Boy Scouts' you speak of--they are warrior monks? With the single-minded devotion of a religious community?"

"Well... a scout is cheerful, trustworthy, obedient, clean, brave and reverent. I was an assistant scoutmaster thirty years running. And loyal. I ran a tight ship--no booze, no dope. We encouraged abstinence before marriage. Hey, the kids were only twelve years old."

"As you are my chosen champion, I shall accept your assessment. For the time being. We shall have to get me back where I belong, and that is that." Simon took a deep breath and held it as blue veils rippled and slithered to the, well, floor. The apparition arched her back to better display her breasts. "We'll have to get together and urinate sometime," she said.

"What?"

"I am not yet fluent with your idiom," said the Princess Ackaetia. "I spoke wrongly? I had hoped to be alluring. You may breathe now."

Simon chugalugged his remaining beer. "Take it from me--you are definitely alluring." He adjusted the focus.

"And don't fidget. It is unbecoming." The Princess Ackaetia was beginning to fade. Simon gave the kaleidoscope a shake and banged it against the wall.

"Ouch!" said the Princess Ackaetia.

"Uh, sorry," said Simon. "Are you by any chance from another dimension?" In addition to his television habit Simon was an avid reader of science fiction.

"Alas, I was fleeing ravishment or abduction and did not watch where I was going. And now I am wedged in an oubliette at the bottom of my garden. I had slipped away to meditate. Prince Philo Gulesi is hounding me for my maidenhead and I must trust to the kindness of strangers."

"Oubliette? Prince... Philo Gulesi?"

Princess Ackaetia sighed. "A hole in the ground, at the other end of your kaleidoscope. And a very not nice person, to answer your questions in the order presented. Pull me through. There is a lot of me and I am considered odiferous by some species. You will want to do this out-of-doors. And I suggest a pair of rubber gloves."

Simon returned with a dust mask and the large yellow Playtex gloves Bonnie kept under the kitchen sink. He had stuffed the mask with a handkerchief soaked in aftershave lotion. "Ready."

"Unscrew the eyepiece, reach in and pull. Careful now. Incidentally, you smell terrible."

"It's Aqua Velva." Simon's arm extended into the tube farther than the kaleidoscope's lengthwise measurement would have led him to believe. Instead of the curvilinear woman he was expecting, Simon felt a large, viscous, throbbing mass between his fingers. "Ah, I think I've got you."

"You have. But not there. Here. I am ticklish and that is a very personal place. And do not squeeze. Just pull. Got it?" said the Princess Ackaetia. "Pull!"