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  Valdor Lon hop- skipped through time like a pebble bounding across the surface of water just by playing a killer blues progression on his favorite guitar. Time travel made easy with a few strums on the black Gretsch Country Gentleman, that once belonged to Jeff Bridges. Classic guitar theft, from famous historical figures, was Valdor’s hobby, and a new goal beckoned him to jump through the nine-by-nine-by-nine mathematical matrix of time. Today he would play his way two-hundred eighty years in the past and steal “Black Beauty”, Jimmy Page’s prized 1960 Gibson Les Paul Custom. Then with a musical skip back to his present, he would have his favorite luthier copy the classic guitar.

  Once, Valdor boogied his way back in time to 1977 and lifted all of Johnny Ramones guitars from his storage unit and stuffed them into a ruck sack of weightless potential space. The sack hid the entire collection while Valdor strolled back to his time jump portal unnoticed, looking like an unshaven, silver haired, 1970s street bum in baggy cargo pants, a green windbreaker that matched his eyes, and a dirty Oakland A’s baseball cap. The guitars, two Mosrites, two Fenders, a Rickenbacker and a Yamaha, now adorned Valdor’s vault wall. He had offered Johnny a fair price for the white 1973 Stratocaster, but Johnny refused to sell. Too bad. Now Valdor had them all.

  Stealing a guitar from Page crossed a certain artistic line for Valdor. Page, a time master, portal opener and Gravity Master himself, deserved the nod of mutual guitar virtuoso respect. Jimmy would get an outstanding copy of his own guitar before he realized it was missing, and Valdor would add the original to his priceless collection.

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  Time portals couldn’t be jumped at will, their opening and closing corresponded to a specific nine by nine mathematic matrix of beginnings and endings. Numbers mattered and the matrix of time required coincidence. When the numbers aligned the time portals had to be opened with the right vibrations, tones and pitches and amped up through The Key, a device made by Valdor’s alien father that altered both time and its coupled phenomena gravity. Valdor waited years for a day that numbers aligned, and a time-gravity-math-music intersection could send him back to 1970, the only year “Black Beauty” was on tour with the band and the easiest time to filch it.

  Valdor dialed up the date and time on his KEY, a device created to open portals. Small, crystallin, round, and bound to his left wrist by a worn leather strap, it looked like and old fashion watch face. He strummed the guitar and amped the output through an armband computer that encircled his firm bicep and turned to the portal built into the wall of his vault. A simple arch paved with polished red granite, faced with solid rock, and topped with a capstone that was the portal control module, it had taken him on many journeys and then brought him back home. He smiled

  I go wherever. I go whenever.

  That was Valdor’s personal motto.

  What song should he play to open his transit back in time and space? A Zep tune seemed appropriate and the opening bars of “The Ocean” rang from the Gretsch.

  The stone wall beneath the arch disappeared and bluish, blurry, wavy interference lines replaced the solid rock. Valdor stepped through the arch and felt the space time distortion take hold of him, cast him downwards, throw him backwards like a reverse rollercoaster ride of nauseating freefall into nothingness. Ten minutes later he slammed into dry sod outside the baggage handling area of Minneapolis Airport the evening of April 12th, 1970.