The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  Boiled dravoth leaves are about as tempting as bluegrass soup, and the roots are as tasty as elm bark. The only luxury in foods is fish, and from all indications there is grave danger that the fish will soon be gone. This little world holds approximately a million people. The normal increase in population is due to bring about a famine.

  X

  Voileen supposed she knew all about her grandfather Crassie. But here was a surprise.

  Teacher Crassie removed an ornamental dravoth mat from the wall and there was a door. Beyond this wall, Voileen had supposed, was a bank of mountain against which this house had been built.

  Crassie opened the door and the three of them walked along a narrow passage. It was so low that even Voileen, the shortest of the three, kept getting her hair wet on the drops of water that clung to the ceiling.

  “I dug this tunnel myself,” said the old grandfather proudly. “See. We are going down.”

  Voileen remembered that her father had often scoffed at Crassie because his hands were worn and crusty.

  “I dig a little each night,” said Crassie. “Now, I am far enough to know that the pull upon us grows greater as we come farther down. Yet there is so little difference that I could never convince your father—”

  “Does father know about this?” Voileen asked.

  “He would never admit to anyone that he knows. I tried to enlist his aid, but Nome has his own life to live, and he was afraid of ridicule.” Crassie turned to Hajjah. “Not many people would care to share my beliefs if it might cost them a beaten face.”

  In the yellow torchlight, Voileen could see that Hajjah’s face, for all its bruises, was on fire with interest.

  “How far,” Hajjah asked, “must you dig to reach a new world?”

  “Very far. No one knows.”

  “But the King’s Laws don’t tell us that tunnels can be dug,” said Voileen.

  “And so I do not teach it,” said her grandfather with a sly twinkle. “But school is over now, and I am talking only to two confidential friends.”

  “How could it be?” Hajjah asked. The teacher shook his head slowly. “I do not know. If we want to know, we should dig. The laws are good, of course.”

  “Won’t we get in trouble, talking such things?” Voileen asked.

  “Perhaps you favor your father instead of me,” said Crassie.

  But Voileen shook her head. “I’ll never tell him I’ve been here . . . Can we go farther?”

  XI

  From Randolph Hill’s notebook: It’s time I found my way out of this world. People are getting suspicious of me. I can’t help making friends with some of them. But it wouldn’t do to expose my secret—that I’m from another world. It would upset their whole existence.

  But my unorthodox remarks give my friends a lot of trouble. For example, my suggestion that the lakes ought to be restocked before the fish are all gone, and that someone ought to start a fish hatchery. My listeners were horrified. The King’s Laws wouldn’t allow anyone to interfere with the private lives of fish! So that’s that.

  XII

  Hill’s notebook: I should have come a century or so earlier and met this chap Witfessal. He must have had an oversized brain, from all the mathematical laws he invented. They still call him the King, but no one sees him because he stays at home—up in the “King’s Cloud” that gives off all the light. So they say.

  Guess there’s no reason for him to come down and talk things over, because all his answers are already down in black and white. And most of them are good, as far as they go. He couldn’t have improved on his timing of the Winds (which correspond to Days) if he had had a stopwatch and a slide rule. It’s good enough as it stands.

  His laws on the succession of dark seasons and light seasons are also highly accurate. That spiral nebula keeps turning slowly, and it has a dark side. The dark period brings rain and storms. The dark and light periods are the two seasons, and taken together comprise a year.

  XIII

  Hill’s notebook: When I leave this hollow planet I must take a copy of the Laws. I’m learning to read the stuff. The Witfessal Agents would be shocked to death if they knew I was reading it for the first time. Their business is to check up. It’s everyone’s civic duty to study the Laws.

  When a Witfessal Agent calls, you have to report on how much studying you’ve done. You also pay a fee to the Agent. Technically, this fee is a donation to the treasury of King Witfessal, but in reality the Agent keeps it. After all he can’t afford to go around collecting money for the King unless he’s paid for his trouble.

  Agents are usually men whose land has ceased to grow dravoth, or whose fandruffs have all died. They’re an interesting lot, always well primed with quotations from the King’s Law and with gossip from the neighboring roadcrossings (villages).

  If I don’t find that lost cave within another wind or two, the rains will begin and I’ll be sitting here for another season.

  XIV

  Hill’s notebook: If I don’t get out of this planet soon, I’ll find myself going mad or getting married, I’m not sure which. But I can’t live in this lost world much longer.

  XV

  Hill’s notebook: Will probably stay for three or four more seasons, until Crassie gets a little older. Before I leave, must make sure he and his mother are well provided for.

  XVI

  A new season was at hand. The dark cloud bank moved away. The wet gray rocks in the pasture turned glistening white with light from the King’s Cloud.

  Hajjah’s fandruffs poked their heads out from under the protecting cliff and discovered that the rains were over. The calves went chasing down the hillside, and the older beasts trudged off toward the greenest dravoth patches to resume their grazing.

  Hajjah looked toward the concave landscape where a lone figure was walking down the road.

  “A Witfessal Agent,” Hajjah said, when he was sure he could distinguish the blue robe the traveler was wearing. “But he won’t call on me. I’m too far off the road.”

  There had been very few visitors to this grazing region during the dark season, other than members of Hajjah’s own family who came to bring him supplies of food.

  Once, Mooburkle had come to pay his respects and deliver a load of personal gossip. Moo had almost joined a company of traveling players, who wanted a short, fat, comedy actor.

  But Moo had changed his mind upon learning that Ecker had a share in the company. The traveling players could do without a short, fat, funny man, as far as Moo was concerned.

  Once, Voileen had come.

  She had promised to come often, in spite of her father.

  “Doesn’t Nome want you to see me?” Hajjah had asked.

  “Nome doesn’t even know you. But I told him you were herding,” Voileen had replied.

  “Is there anything wrong with that?”

  “Nome has peculiar ideas, you know—even if he is my father. He and grandfather Crassie never agree on what I should do. Nome hopes I will sometime marry a Witfessal Agent. Or perhaps an actor. But not a herder whose clothes are full of the smell of fandruffs.”

  “I like the smell of fandruffs, Leenie,” Hajjah had said.

  And Voileen had responded, “I like whatever you like, Haj.”

  It was ever present in Hajjah’s mind that there was a bond between him and Voileen. It was the bond of secrecy which had been formed that day Crassie took them down into the tunnel.

  It was also a bond of friendship and faith in each other—something never to be talked about except when they were together. It made them members of a little secret society for two—or three, counting Crassie.

  Voileen had promised to come back often, and before departing she had let Hajjah press his face close against hers in a token of love.

  But she had not returned; and Hajjah could not imagine why.

  If only Mooburkle would come again—or someone—so that Haj could leave his herd and hike to Crassie’s house, two roadcrossings away—

  N
ow, Hajjah gazed longingly toward the road. That bluerobed Witfessal Agent was indeed coming toward him. A ray of hope—an idea—perhaps the Agent would herd the fandruffs for a short time.

  Or could a Witfessal Agent be trusted with a herd of fandruffs?

  XVII

  “You are Hajjah?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know by my blue robe that I have come in the name of King Witfessal.” The Agent’s words were a practiced speech which required no gestures, no expressions of friendliness. The authority of the blue robe was introduction enough for any such officer. “Which sections of the King’s Law have you studied since you were last visited?”

  “I didn’t bring any copy of the Law,” said Hajjah, “but I have recited my memorized sections many times.”

  The Witfessal Agent made a written record of Hajjah’s accomplishments and continued with the matter of contributions to the treasury.

  That detail taken care of, the Agent launched an admonition for more study and memorizing.

  “You were a classmate of Ecker, were you not?”

  “Yes,” said Hajjah.

  “Ecker has made a splendid record since leaving school. No one in all this row of roadcrossings has studied and memorized so faithfully as he.”

  The Agent waited as if to make sure that Hajjah was duly impressed. Then his manner grew stern.

  “Hajjah, I have been told that you were one of those who listened to the blasphemies of Crassie.”

  “Blasphemies?”

  “Certain words of Crassie are not in harmony with the Laws, and you must know it.”

  “Who has been talking to you?” Hajjah’s anger was suddenly shooting to his fingertips. His fists wanted to clench.

  “I have talked with Nome. He has been made the assistant to Mombal, High Servant of the King.”

  “Nome! Voileen’s father—”

  “Nome is aware of the danger of Crassie’s teachings. He fears for his own daughter—”

  “Where is Voileen? Have you seen her?”

  “Her father has forbidden her to see you, Hajjah,” said the Agent.

  “But she wasn’t living with her father,” Hajjah blurted. “He was too strict. She was with Crassie—”

  “Her father intends to get her away from all the old influences of Madman Hill,” the Agent said. “He was able to place her with a respected company of traveling players—Ecker’s troupe.”

  XVIII

  Hill’s notebook: Other than reading the Laws, these people have little to do for amusement or diversion. However, they do have a few public entertainments that might be classed as drama.

  The plays are staged by little bands of actors who travel from roadcrossing to roadcrossing. They require no stage, very little scenery. All they need is a clearing wide enough for the audience to gather around in a semicircle. A few dravoth screens enable the players to make entrances and exits.

  The sad plays are funny and the funny ones are sad. After you’ve seen three or four you’ve seen them all, since they follow well beaten trails.

  One of the themes is starvation. It invariably ends when the hero, after marching away to starve to death, remembers to recite the Witfessal Laws, and then comes home with a bag of fish or an unclaimed fandruff. These starvation plays aren’t too popular, because of the smell. The actors must hold onto the same dead fish all season.

  Another theme concerns messages from King Witfessal. According to the plays—which are the only record of hollow planet history other than the written Laws—the great King will sometimes whisper fresh tidbits of knowledge into the ears of some Agent or fandruff herder who has been studying his Laws conscientiously. The audiences like to see these revelations dramatized.

  Both of the above themes are on the serious side.

  For their comedies they capitalize on lightning and thunder and sudden death. Why it’s funny is more than I can say. The typical play in this vein will depict a weaver who is on his way home from work with an armload of ornamental skin garments. He chances to find a garment that someone has left lying on the ground. He picks it up. Then he meets another weaver, who is surprised to see him carrying so many garments. The second weaver says to the first, “Are they all yours?”

  And the first weaver says, “They’re all mine. I made them all myself.”

  Whereupon the lightning strikes him dead—and the crowd howls with laughter.

  Then the second weaver picks up the first weaver’s garments and adds them to his own. Sure enough, he meets someone who asks if they are all his.

  And sure enough the second fool weaver answers, “They’re all mine. I made them all myself.”

  Then the lightning strikes him dead—and the spectators howl their heads off.

  Where such a theme originated, I haven’t been able to learn. There is very little lightning and thunder in this enclosed world. But no doubt there have been deaths from lightning at some time in the distant past.

  XIX

  Hajjah and Mooburkle waited until the crowd had gathered in a closely packed semicircle. The first play was about to start.

  Hajjah didn’t want to be noticed. From his recent talk with the Witfessal Agent, he knew that rumors were spreading.

  Somehow the word had gotten around that Teacher Crassie had actually begun to dig into the ground for another world. Crassie, the profound teacher, of all persons!

  Could it be that Teacher Crassie had fallen victim to his father’s malady?

  Hajjah and Moo edged closer. The drama was on. It was a tragedy of starvation.

  Each time a new actor emerged from behind the screen, Hajjah was sure it would be Voileen—but he was always wrong.

  When the first play ended, Moo volunteered to slip around to the rear of the screens to see if she was there. Soon he reported back. No Voileen. She wasn’t with the troupe after all.

  “But Ecker is back there,” Moo said. “And a man all dressed up for the next play, with big ears and a funny face.”

  “The second play,” said Hajjah, “is something Ecker has written. I heard someone say so.”

  A moment later the announcement was made by one of the actors. Here was the new comedy everyone was talking about, written by a new actor named Ecker. The play was called A Pile of Dirt, and the leading man was Ecker, himself.

  XX

  If the play had been by anyone but Ecker, Hajjah would have roared with laughter along with the rest of the crowd.

  The first appearance was funny—so funny that Moo, fairly splitting his fat sides, evidently lost all sight of the real purpose of the play.

  One actor was made up to look tall and thin. He wore shaggy hair, a huge clay nose, and wide ears. The first thing he did was to stop and gaze at the audience, open-mouthed.

  He gazed and began wiggling his big arched eyebrows. That was wonderfully funny, and from that moment forward the audience was right with him.

  Next he unhooked some small metal tools from the shoulders of his baggy yellow robe—a pick and a spade.

  He began to dig.

  At once, a man in ordinary dress walked up to him and asked what he was doing.

  “I’m going to dig,” said the funny man.

  For the next few moments he dug laboriously, without succeeding in unearthing more than a few spoonfuls of earth. All at once he began to droop. He handed the extra tool to the man who stood watching him.

  “You dig.”

  They both dug. Then they both began to droop, and the second man said, “What are we digging for?”

  “To find another Wanzuura.”

  “How much farther do we have to dig?”

  “I’ll go ask an Agent. Keep digging.”

  The funny man walked off. The other man mopped his forehead, and laid down his tools. He glanced to one side as if he saw someone coming. Then he hung up a big sign.

  “EACH MAN HELP DIG . . . WE WILL FIND A NEW WANZUURA”

  One man after another came past and each stopped to help dig.

&nb
sp; When the skinny man with the big ears came back he measured to see how deep the hole was. Not deep enough to hide his big feet.

  After considerable argument among the various diggers, and absurd explanations from the funny man, a new character entered the group—Ecker, in the garb of a Witfessal Agent.

  A hush of quiet came over everyone—actors and audience alike.

  “There is no other Wanzuura,” said Ecker, the Witfessal Agent, in a solid, convincing voice.

  He removed the sign and hung up a wide thin mat of woven dravoth.

  “Watch me,” Ecker said to the funny-faced slim man, who in turn told the audience, “Watch him,” with a wiggling of eyebrows and ears that made everyone laugh.

  Ecker took a knife and cut a circle in the center of the mat.

  “That is our Wanzuura. All around it is solid rock.”

  “How do you know?”

  “There it is, all around us.” Ecker made a sweeping gesture toward the surrounding landscape.

  The clown looked around at the real world, and nodded with his oversized ears and eyebrows. But he whirled back to the map and pointed to a spot an arm’s length from the circle.

  “Maybe there’s another world down here?”

  “Let’s imagine there is.” Ecker cut a second circle. The two circles were an arm’s length apart. “So you’re going to dig to find it.”

  The funny man blinked while Ecker made dozens of lines out from the center circle. Not one of them went toward the second world. He drove the point home.

  “You may dig in any direction. But what do you strike? Rock and more rock. Are you likely to hit this other world?”

  The clown glanced to the ground where he had recently been digging. He gulped and looked at the audience questioningly. Everyone hooted—except Hajjah.

  “Let me show you something else,” said Ecker. “How long does it take you to walk around our Wanzuura?”