The Great Gizmo rolled himself a cigarette and rested his feet on his old chest. He drew the smoke into his lungs, savouring its flavour before slowly releasing it into his tent. He watched it curl upward, then waft on the airy drafts.
It had been another successful performance; he had again been fired from his cannon sixty feet onto the netting; Gizmo had set the crowd alight with the swirl of smoke and a woosh from the cannon as he was propelled like a rocket skyward. With deft movements of his hands and arms, he steered himself through the air and down onto the netting. He bounced once, righted himself, then gripped the netting’s edge before summersaulting off.
This was tedious work now; motivation had dissipated with each billowing bang from his cannon; he had become irritated and disillusioned. What he needed was a new challenge; something discreate, something dangerous, something magnificent. His mind spun like a gyroscope, thinking, considering different challenges, but how could he think with his feet so toasted?
‘Me bloody souls are roasted!’ He exclaimed, rubbing his hands over one foot then the other. ‘Remind me to put extra waddin’ in, otherwise I’ll be flyin’ with a bloody great comet trail!’
‘Will do, Gizmo.’ Arnie, his assistant and general handyman, made a mental note to himself.
‘Next time, Arnie,’ Gizmo’s speech became whisper quiet, ‘I want a bigger bang. Something so spectacular, it will take the buggers breath away.’ Then with blazing eyes and in a ringing tone, he said, ‘I’ll set a record, a world record of 120 feet!’ The Great Gizmo finished massaging his feet and stood, raising his arms in glory.
‘Is it safe?’ Arnie asked, wondering whether to call him Gizmo or by his real name, Birt.
‘I reckon,’ said Gizmo, rubbing his chin, thoughtfully. ‘With a goodly thick wad and the doubling of powder, I should make, say twice the distance.’ His eyes glazed wondrously before a smirk danced across his face. In a dubious Russian accent, he said, ‘The Great Gizmo! The human cannonball, will be hurled further than any other man!’
The next day, Gizmo sat down and calculated the amount of powder and the thickness of the wadding needed to reach the net. He found his initial intuition to be right, doubling his gunpowder would meet his exact need, and he would add powders like titanium, zirconium, and magnesium, to make a silver-white smoke for extra effect.
Gizmo began his promotion, taking an advertisement in “The Times” and in the local papers thereabout, he proclaimed his intention to set a new human cannonball record, it read.
“This Saturday, at 10 am in London Park, The Great Gizmo will attempt to set a new WORLD RECORD of 120 feet, the furthest a human cannonball has ever been propelled!”
This announcement caused a great stare in the showbusiness and wider communities, many where fearful, others pondered his mental health, some egged him on with fine words of encouragement and succour. On Friday evening a queue formed, snaking like the twitchy tail of a cheetah, made of colourful chairs, tents and blankets. This was the biggest show in decades, and all of London wanted to see it.
The moment came; The Great Gizmo clambered into his cannon. He screwed his neck to either side, gaging the crowd, each with the heads tilted upward, some happy, some excited some fearful; all was as it should be.
‘My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls!’ He shouted in his improbable Russian accent, ‘I will, today, enter the realms of immortality by initiating a record for the furthest person to travel being shot out of a cannon! If I die, then know this, you have seen greatness this day!’
With that, he pointed his arms skyward, then, with a whoosh and a very big bang, The Great Gizmo disappeared into a cloud of silver smoke, never to be seen again. All they found was a single black boot, emblazoned with a large silver “G”, but nothing more. He had gone, vanished into silvery smoke and fire.
Two years later, in 1906, a Birt Luzinski leaned against a tall mill tower talking to the well-dressed mill owner.
‘I’d like a really big bang, Mr. Luzinski’ said the mill owner, as he looked up at his old soot-blackened chimney. It had outgrown its usefulness, and a bigger chimney had been built, towering a hundred feet higher than the old stack. This mill owner wanted to make a statement, a powerful statement that his mill was ready to take on all other industrialists.
‘Oh ah, it ‘ill be a big bang right enough.’ Birt nodded, thoughtfully, then added, ‘I can make coloured smoke too, it you like.’
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