Was that supposed to happen?” Sadie yelled, as George took off running.

He puffed through the empty streets wondering why he’d not augmented his fitness in his own world, it seemed obvious now. He passed the cobblers, yeah he needed some seven league boots from the fairytales. He pounded onward with Sadie keeping up easily.

“Wait,” she pulled his shoulder to slow him down, “Should we be running into the problem?”

They both stopped. Graz was eerily quiet considering some kind of explosion had just happened. He looked up at the hill in the center of town – maybe the shot had been fired from there? He scanned the hill looking for paths and made out some smoke by that big canon thing.

Big canon thing?

“See that smoke up there?” He got moving again, heading inward thinking they should head up the hill. They rounded a corner into the town square and found a building and the fountain in ruins. A cherub’s head rolled towards them while the body still squirted water from the neck. There was no fire though, George thanked whatever scriptwriter had not coded that consequence. He had to admire the wreckage though, could he let the investors fire canon?

His mind worked backwards calculating the angle of a shot that might have launched the artillery for this and he cast a look up at the hill again. Now he could make out people up there and they were loading up the canon again.

“Duck” he shouted but Sadie was way ahead of him, dragging him out of range.

Half way up the hill the canon kicked back as it fired again. The museum guide moved him with surprising speed and strength or Hank might have felt several simulated tons of iron run over his foot. That museum guy was stronger than he looked Hank thought. Their second ball landed perfectly in the town square, just to the right of his first hit, and Hank watched a building collapse before a great cloud of mortar dust obscured the view.

This time however, he also heard a shout and a scream.

“Wait – are there people down there? We have to check out,” he took off running down the zigzagging pathway they’d traveled up earlier.” Beside him the museum guide ran too, and then picked him up like a child and accelerated toward their target.

The world blurred and seconds later they were down among the damage.

Hank saw two young people wandering about. They wheeled around as he was set on his feet and the young man came over, looking angry.

“What are you doing? Who are you? Are you a thing? Why are you wrecking stuff?”

He was asking questions so fast that Hank could barely keep up. He was about to ask for the nurse when the museum guide stepped in between him and the angry man, sheltering him from the yelling.

“Hello George” the guide he said. “Please don’t yell at Mr Hank. He was only enjoying an outing. He is perfectly safe. He is a friend of your grandmother’s.”

Grandmother was apparently a good word to say because the guy and his friend both calmed right down.

“I might want to go home,” said Hank. He’d been having a lot of fun and he hoped he could come out here again.

“I’m sorry about the mess.”

The museum guide smiled at him. It was a weird smile but Hank felt it was made with the right intentions.

“You can certainly go home, and don’t worry, we are going to clean everything up so it is all organized again. We look forward to your next visit.”

“Wait!’” Hank heard the woman say, but he was already fading out of his visit and opening his eyes in the theatre. He felt like he’d just seen a really good movie.

“How was it?” said the woman who’d given him that thing to wear.

“Great!” he said, feeling both tired and exhilarated at the same time. “I fired a canon. I’ve always wanted to do that.”

“Men,” said his friend, but she didn’t’ sound too annoyed. Hank decided not to mention blowing up the buildings.

Just then a nurse came in and told him it was time to take some pills. He got up and headed out to the nurses station and when he went back his friend had gone. There was a cookie on each of the back row seats though, so he sat down and enjoyed real sugar as another movie started to play. You could almost imagine this was a real theatre except the lights weren’t as dim as they used to get and the seats were made of something that could be wiped. He watched the movie for a while until a thought began to nag at him that he’d forgotten something.

He went out to ask at the nurse’s station if it was time for him to have his pills.

“You had them 40 minutes ago Hank,” the girl behind the desk told him.

Hank wanted to ask if they’d maybe gone on an outing somewhere today. They did sometimes. But since he wasn’t sure if they had he didn’t want to ask. They knew he had dementia but there was no need to let them know how confused he go sometimes.

He passed he craft room on the way to his room. He almost never went in there. Usually he’d seen people spaced out dabbing paint on cards and the whole place depressed him, but today he heard laughter and there seemed to be more going on. It flashed into his mind that maybe someone had finally smuggled in some whiskey.

Hank was tired though, he kept walking and soon he was at his room. He dreamt of canons.