“Roger? Will you come down here?” sang Susan, her voice resonating up toward the end of the house where Roger was. Upstairs, reading in his room, Roger let out a great sigh and closed his book. He swept his fingers under his glasses and began to rub the lids to his green eyes softly.

“Yes Mommy Dearest,” he replied, in an equally sing-song manner, as he made his way, blinking, towards the door. “I really hope this is important. That book was just starting to get good…” he mumbled to himself as he hastily descended the stairs.

Roger didn’t really mind helping his mother, its just he wished to be doing something more for a Saturday afternoon.

He swaggered into the kitchen. “What can I do for ya ma’am?” said Roger with his faux-Southern drawl he loved so much.

Susan laughed, “Could you hand me that aluminum foil on the top self?” Roger was rather tall and his mother often used this to her advantage.

Dramatically, Roger turned his head upward to the top shelf his mother was indicating. “Hold on up there! We’re coming to get you! Everything is going to be fine, just don’t look down!” and with the aide of his tippy-toes, Roger carefully plucked the foil off the shelf and handed it to his mother with a low bow. “Is there anything else you require Madam?” he said, still bent forward in a bow and peering up through his dark hair.

“No, that will be all, thank you,” his mother smiled and rolled her eyes at him. Roger turned on his heels and marched out of the kitchen, smiling to himself, as he slowly wandered back up stairs.

He let out a great yawn as he approached the door to his bed chamber, as he liked to call it, (his mother would often refer to it as his “evil lair”). Hannibal, his black and white hamster, was busily running on his exercise wheel, while his next door neighbor, Queen Mab the clown fish, was lazily swimming in her fish tank. Dolores, the family feline, was sleeping on Roger’s bed.

Roger walked over to his window and pulled up the blinds. Dolores looked up at him through the slits of her eyes, then slowly laid her head back down.

“Agh, it burns, it burns!” Roger laughed at the cat.

He pulled one of the silver spheres of his Newton’s Cradle, and let it fall back and clank the others. It continued with its methodical rhythm as Roger gazed up at his solar system. To his dismay, he noticed the edge of Saturn’s ring was peeling away from the ceiling. “This will never do,” he whispered as he pulled up a chair under the offending planet. He grabbed some tape and adhered the planet back into its correct orbit. He had had those glow in the dark stars and planets since he was seven, and now at seventeen, he still was quite fond of them. From his perch atop the chair, Roger also noticed that his black lights had become rather dusty. “Oh, the humanity,” he said sarcastically. Roger wasn’t by any means a messy person, he just preferred upkeep versus intense cleaning. He had been curious as to why he was sneezing so much lately, and assumed this renegade dust was the culprit. Dismissing the dust for another day, he stepped off the chair and placed it back under his desk. With a soft chuckle, he proceeded to pet the sleeping cat. He considered going back to his reading, but instead chose to attempt another level on his video game.

What started as a usual Saturday eventually, as Roger had hoped, turned into something more. In the middle of Slayer of the Undead 2: Attack of the Corporate Zombies, the doorbell rang.

“Roger, will you answer that?” inquired Susan’s melodious voice. Roger paused his game and stood up to look out the window. It was a delivery man driving a UPS truck, and with him he had quite the cumbersome looking package. Roger once again galloped down the stairs and opened the front door.

“Good morning, are you Roger Waters?” the postman asked.

“Yes… yes I am,” replied Roger rather surprised.

“I’m going to need your signature for this. Don’t worry, it looks heavy, but its not,” said the man reassuringly as he set the package on the ground and handed the clipboard over to Roger.

“Thanks,” Roger said, “I wasn’t really expecting a package from anyone.”

“Those are the best kind,” said the delivery man with a wink, as Roger tapped the end of the pen and handed the clipboard back. “Have a nice day!” said the postman, and with that he left.

Roger stared at the curious looking parcel and wondered who it was from. He had a vague sense of familiarity with it. There was some international postage on it, and the return address said that it came from somewhere in Canada.

“Who was it?” asked Susan coming from the kitchen, drying her hands on a dish towel.

“Mom, who do we know in Canada? This package came for me, but it doesn’t say the name of who sent it.”

“Well, let’s open it up and see!”
So, Roger dropped to his knees and began to untie the package…







It was a rather large square box, and it appeared to be wrapped in black paper and tied with string. As Roger tore the paper away, he found a cardboard box sealed with masking tape. He reached into the left-side knee pocket of his cargo pants and retrieved his Swiss army knife. He sliced the tape along the center of the box and slowly folded back the flaps. The box was filled with pink Styrofoam peanuts. Roger lifted the box again and lightly shook it. There was no obvious shift of the contents within, so he proceeded to brush away the peanuts, while his mother was along side him scooping out handfuls of her own. As they continued to probe through the contents of the box, Roger noticed a shiny, metallic gleam coming from the bottom. Decisively, he picked up the box and tipped it on its side, emptying out all the peanuts. A silvery sheet of paper delicately drifted from the box. On the sheet of paper, there was what appeared to be a map.

“Whoa. Where do you think it leads too?” asked his mother.

“I don’t know,” he replied, “I was thinking the same thing. Only my question is… what does it lead to?”