Atmospheric disturbance in a vacuum

This is for Fabian, who suggested the title for a story in a spirit of devilment, I think. Ha! He thinks he has me beaten! O.k. I confess that I am going for an offbeat approach here and that  Fabian may consider this cheating. So, if he would like, I will write more on a later date on vacuums proper as one studies them in Physics.

But for now....

Henry had put in many valuable years of service and had, on occasion, felt himself treated rather roughly. I say, "himself" because it is hard to refer to something with a face as "it", which is, of course, what the manufacturers had been aiming at. That the anthropomorphism would take place and Henry, with his rounded sides, squat body and cheerful grin, would become part of the family.

Henry could tolerate carpets and, occasionally, stone dust. One one occasion, he had had to suffer a stiff and very dead frog, whose legs protruded menacingly from the end of his hose. "Look! Henry ate a killed frog!" said one of the young children. The shame. It was, though, his owner's attempt to emulate the chimney sweep and do a little light removal of chimney debris that probably did for him. He had suffered disturbance in the makings of his vacuum mechanisms before, but this caused a cough. Three days later, further disturbance. One rug too many and -Bang! Henry was no more. Unfixable. His engine removed, his hose and all its accoutrements given to people who liked spare parts and who wanted to recondition their own Henrys. He just sat there, de-boned, stripped and disembowelled. It was tragic.

A new Henry came: lighter, sleeker, altogether more dashing. "I hate him"  thought he.

Worse, the children were happy. "Another Henry, but don't throw the old one out!" But what point in existence was there?

What could he do, though? His finely calibrated inner atmosphere thrown and his workings given to the dogs. But then the children asked: "Henry is sad. Can we keep him? You can't take him to the tip - he's got  a face!" and a thought occurred.

Henry has had a second incarnation, Fabian. You can see him, above. He has been stuffed (so no longer empty and thus not a vacuum -- ha ha), patched up with gaffer tape and is now a kind of wheelie toy for two young boys, who scoot downhill on him at speed. So, you see, he's happy. And if there is a moral to this tale, it is two fold.1: that one can rise, phoenix-like, from trauma, atmospheric disturbance or, actually, explosion and, 2: that you always get a second chance.One just has to be imaginative sometimes and think laterally. For you? No problems. And thus ends the tale of Henry and the atmospheric disturbance in a vacuum.
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