Consolation Prize

by Luc Reid

That the teleportation device he’d invented didn’t work as expected only made him smug that he had tested it on himself, as anyone with cojones would do, so that regardless of the distorted figures streaming by him through the long tunnel of colors and sharp smells and moments of dizziness and near-memories, regardless of the feeling that he had forgotten his legs and the inability he had to focus enough to look down and see for sure, regardless of his unfed poodle Toy George who by now would be whining in the kitchen to be let out, regardless of the weeks-old, unanswered letter from his estranged brother that would now be permanently unanswered, and despite the sense that before too long he would break into particles and be sucked in by the distorted figures, the howling shapes, he could not feel entirely disappointed in the results, because after all, if he hadn’t invented teleportation, nonetheless he had clearly invented something.