by Ray Bradbury
Beeswax: A mining town in Arizona.
Sedalia: A railroad town in the heart of the Missouri farmlands. ~
Peiping: Peking. The Northern Capital. Tientsin’s huge old sister.
Shanhaikwan: The town at the northern end of the Great Wall.
Place of mud shacks and darky people: Unidentified.
Woldercan: A hieroglyph on a potsherd.
VII. THE STATUETTES, FIGURINES, ICONS, ARTIFACTS, AND IDOLS
Yottle: Bronze.
Kate: Carnelian chalcedony.
Sphinx (Mrs. Rogers’s): Terra cotta.
Sphinx (Winkelmann’s) : Ivory.
Sphinx (Egyptian): Sandstone.
One anonymous man: Sandstone.
Eleven anonymous onlookers: Chert.
Ten drunken sailors: Chert and schist.
The Buddha: Jade.
Crucifix: Gold.
Chimera (Alexandrian) : Rags and clay and hide and bones.
Chimera (Tibetan) : Porcelain.
Chimera (Kublai’s) : Bronze.
Ephesian Diana: Rosewood.
Lingam: Second growth black walnut.
Yottle’s sacred stone ax: Basalt.
VIII. THE QUESTIONS AND CONTRADICTIONS AND OBSCURITIES
1. Was it a bear or a Russian or what?
2. If the sea serpent was as poisonous as it claimed to be, why didn’t it kill the chimera when it bit him?
3. Why, after all the discussion between himself and his wife, didn’t Frank Tull hunt up the bear and see what it really was?
4. Why should Apollonius of Tyana, who claimed superiority to Christ, fall back on the crucifix to banish Satan?
5. Why didn’t the two college punks get sore when they were thrown out?
6. Why didn’t Doctor Lao notice anything unusual when he found Miss Agnes Birdsong and the satyr in such a compromising posture?
7. What was the business that the dead man whom Apollonius resurrected had to attend to?
8. What did Mumbo Jumbo do with the fair-haired Nordic girl?
9. If the circus didn’t come to Abalone on the railroad and didn’t come on trucks, how did it get there?
10. What happened to the eleven people who were turned to stone when the medusa dropped her blindfold?
11. If Apollonius was such a great magician, why did he waste his time fooling around with a little circus?
12. Inasmuch as legend tells us that chimeras were invariably females, how did it happen that Doctor Lao’s was a male?
13. Was it for this same reason that Tu-jeng, when Doctor Lao caught the satyr there, was a hamlet near the Great Wall, whereas it is now a suburb of Tientsin?
IX. THE FOODSTUFFS
Pork chops. Lettuce. Ham hocks. Lamb chops. Persimmons. Hay. Soda pop. Duck eggs. Garlic. Little fat brown boy. Candy. Onion seeds. Pie. Pelicans. Grapes. Proteins. Snails. Beer. Snow geese. Sea foods. Carbohydrates. Frigate bird. Butterfat. Chicken. Gooseliver. Fish. Vahine. Frogs. Bananas. Oysters. Brown boy’s old pappy. Bugs. Plantain. Fishing worms. Little plants. Lizards. Grub worms. Hot dogs. Rattlesnakes. Noodles. Slop. Nuts.
Tientsin-Tucson, 1929-1934.
THE POND by Nigel Kneale
It was deeply scooped from a corner of the field, a green stagnant hollow with thorn bushes on its banks.
From time to time something moved cautiously beneath the prickly branches that were laden with red autumn berries. It whistled and murmured coaxingly.
"Come, come, come, come," it whispered. An old man, squatting frog-like on the bank. His words were no louder than the rustling of the dry leaves above his head. "Come now. Sssst—ssst! Little dear—here's a bit of meat for thee." He tossed a tiny scrap of something into the pool. The weed rippled sluggishly.
The old man sighed and shifted his position. He was crouching on his haunches because the bank was damp.
He froze.
The green slime had parted on the far side of the pool. The disturbance travelled to the bank opposite, and a large frog drew itself half out of the water. It stayed quite still, watching; then with a swift crawl it was clear of the water. Its yellow throat throbbed.
"Oh!—little dear," breathed the old man. He did not move.
He waited, letting the frog grow accustomed to the air and slippery earth. When he judged the moment to be right, he made a low grating noise in his throat.
He saw the frog listen.
The sound was subtly like the call of its own kind. The old man paused, then made it again.
This time the frog answered. It sprang into the pool, sending the green weed slopping, and swam strongly. Only its eyes showed above the water. It crawled out a few feet distant from the old man and looked up the bank, as if eager to find the frog it had heard.
The old man waited patiently. The frog hopped twice, up the bank.
His hand was moving, so slowly that it did not seem to move, towards the handle of the light net at his side. He gripped it, watching the still frog.
Suddenly he struck.
A sweep of the net, and its wire frame whacked the ground about the frog. It leaped frantically, but was helpless in the green mesh.
“Dear! Oh, my dear!” said the old man delightedly.
He stood with much difficulty and pain, his foot on the thin rod. His joints had stiffened and it was some minutes before he could go to the net. The frog was still struggling desperately. He closed the net round its body and picked both up together.
“Ah, big beauty!” he said. “Pretty. Handsome fellow, you!”
He took a darning needle from his coat lapel and carefully killed the creature through the mouth, so that its skin would not be damaged, then put it in his pocket.
It was the last frog in the pond.
He lashed the water with the net rod, and the weed swirled and bobbed: there was no sign of life now but the little flies that flitted on the surface.
He went across the empty field with the net across his shoulder, shivering a little, feeling that the warmth had gone out of his body during the long wait. He climbed a stile, throwing the net over in front of him to leave his hands free. In the next field, by the road, was his cottage.
Hobbling through the grass with the sun striking a long shadow from him, he felt the weight of the dead frog in his pocket, and was glad.
“Big beauty!” he murmured again.
The cottage was small and dry, and ugly and very old. Its windows gave little light, and they had coloured panels, dark-blue and green, that gave the rooms the appearance of being under the sea.
The old man lit a lamp, for the sun had set; and the light became more cheerful. He put the frog on a plate, and poked the fire, and when he was warm again, took off his coat.
He settled down close beside the lamp and took a sharp knife from the drawer of the table. With great care and patience, he began to skin the frog.
From time to time he took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. The work was tiring; also the heat from the lamp made them sore. He would speak aloud to the dead creature, coaxing and cajoling it when he found his task difficult. But in time he had the skin neatly removed, a little heap of tumbled, slippery film. He dropped the stiff, stripped body into a pan of boiling water on the fire, and sat again, humming and fingering the limp skin.
“Pretty,” he said. “You’ll be so handsome.”
There was a stump of black soap in the drawer and he took it out to rub the skin, with the slow, overcareful motion that showed the age in his hand. The little mottled thing began to stiffen under the curing action. He left it at last, and brewed himself a pot of tea, lifting the lid of the simmering pan occasionally to make sure that the tiny skull and bones were being boiled clean without damage.
Sipping his tea, he crossed the narrow living-room. Well away from the fire stood a high table, its top covered by a square of dark cloth supported on a frame. There was a faint smell of decay.
“How are you, little dears?” said the old man.
He lifted the covering with
shaky scrupulousness. Beneath the wire support were dozens of stuffed frogs.
All had been posed in human attitudes; dressed in tiny coats and breeches to the fashion of an earlier time. There were ladies and gentlemen and bowing flunkeys. One, with lace at his yellow, waxen throat, held a wooden wine-cup. To the dried forepaw of its neighbour was stitched a tiny glassless monocle, raised to a black button eye. A third had a midget pipe pressed into its jaws, with a wisp of wool for smoke. The same coarse wool, cleaned and shaped, served the ladies for their miniature wigs; they wore long skirts and carried fans.
The old man looked proudly over the stiff little figures.
“You, my lord—what are you doing, with your mouth so glum?” His fingers prized open the jaws of a round-bellied frog dressed in satins; shrinkage must have closed them. “Now you can sing again, and drink lip!”
His eyes searched the banqueting, motionless party.
“Where now—? Ah!”
In the middle of the table three of the creatures were fixed in the attitude of a dance.
The old man spoke to them. “Soon we’ll have a partner for the lady there. He’ll be the handsomest of the whole company, my dear, so don’t forget to smile at him and look your prettiest!”
He hurried back to the fireplace and lifted the pan; poured off the steaming water into a bucket.
“Fine, shapely brain-box you have.” He picked with his knife, cleaning the tiny skull. “Easy does it.” He put it down on the table admiringly; it was like a transparent flake of ivory. One by one he found the delicate bones in the pan, knowing each for what it was.
“Now, little duke, we have all of them that we need,” he said at last. “We can make you into a picture indeed. The beau of the ball. And such an object of jealousy for the lovely ladies!”
With wire and thread he fashioned a stiff little skeleton, binding in the bones to preserve the proportions. At the top went the skull.
The frog’s skin had lost its earlier flaccidness. He threaded a needle, eyeing it close to the lamp. From the table drawer he now brought a loose wad of wool. Like a doctor reassuring his patient by describing his methods, he began to talk.
“This wool is coarse, I know, little friend. A poor substitute to fill that skin of yours, you may say: wool from the hedges, snatched by the thorns from a sheep’s back.” He was pulling the wad into tufts of the size he required. “But you’ll find it gives you such a springiness that you’ll thank me for it. Now, carefully does it—”
With perfect concentration he worked his needle through the skin, drawing it together round the wool with almost untraceable stitches.
“A piece of lace in your left hand, or shall it be a quizzing-glass?” With tiny scissors he trimmed away a fragment of skin. “But—wait, it’s a dance and it is your right hand that we must see, guiding the lady.”
He worked the skin precisely into place round the skulL He would attend to the empty eye-holes later.
Suddenly he lowered his needle.
He listened.
Puzzled, he put down the half-stuffed skin and went to the door and opened it.
It was dark now. He heard the sound more clearly. He knew it was coming from the pond. A far-off, harsh croaking, as of a great many frogs.
He frowned.
In the wall cupboard he found a lantern ready trimmed, and lit it with a flickering splinter. He put on an overcoat and hat: the evening was chilly. Lastly he took his net.
He went very cautiously. His eyes saw nothing at first, after working so close to the lamp. Then, as the croaking came to him more clearly and he became accustomed to the darkness, he hurried.
He climbed the stile as before, throwing the net ahead. This time, however, he had to search for it in the darkness, tantalized by the sounds from the pond. When it was in his hand again, he began to move stealthily.
About twenty yards from the pool he stopped and listened.
There was no wind and the noise astonished him. Hundreds of frogs must have travelled through the fields to this spot; perhaps from other water where danger had arisen, perhaps, or drought. He had heard of such instances.
Almost on tiptoe he crept towards the pond. He could see nothing yet. There was no moon, and the thorn bushes hid the surface of the water.
He was a few paces from the pond when, without warning, every sound ceased.
He froze again. There was absolute silence. Not even a watery plop or splashing told that one frog out of all those hundreds had dived for shelter into the weed. It was strange.
He stepped forward, and heard his boots brushing the grass.
He brought the net up across his chest, ready to strike if he saw anything move. He came to the thorn bushes, and still heard no sound. Yet, to judge by the noise they had made, they should be hopping in dozens from beneath his feet.
Peering, he made the throaty noise which had called the frog that afternoon. The hush continued.
He looked down at where the water must be. The surface of the pond, shadowed by the bushes, was too dark to be seen. He shivered, and waited.
Gradually, as he stood, he became aware of a smell.
It was wholly unpleasant. Seemingly it came from the weed, yet mixed with the vegetable odour was one of another kind of decay. A soft, oozy bubbling accompanied it. Gases must be rising from the mud at the bottom. It would not do to stay in this place and risk his health.
He stooped, still puzzled by the disappearance of the frogs, and stared once more at the dark surface. Pulling his net to a ready position, he tried the throaty call for the last time.
Instantly he threw himself backwards with a cry.
A vast, belching bubble of foul air shot from the pool. Another gushed up past his head; then another. Great patches of slimy weed were flung high among the thorn branches.
The whole pond seemed to boil.
He turned blindly to escape, and stepped into the thorns. He was in agony. A dreadful slobbering deafened his ears: the stench overcame his senses. He felt the net whipped from his hand. The icy weeds were wet on his face. Reeds lashed him.
Then he was in the midst of an immense, pulsating softness that yielded and received and held him. He knew he was shrieking. He knew there was no one to hear him.
An hour after the sun had risen, the rain slackened to a light drizzle.
A policeman cycled slowly on the road that ran by the cottage, shaking out his cape with one hand, and half-expecting the old man to appear and call out a comment on the weather. Then he caught sight of the lamp, still burning feebly in the kitchen, and dismounted. He found the door ajar, and wondered if something was wrong.
He called to the old man. He saw the uncommon handiwork lying on the table as if it had been suddenly dropped; and the unused bed.
For half an hour the policeman searched in the neighbourhood of the cottage, calling out the old man’s name at intervals, before remembering the pond. He turned towards the stile.
Climbing over it, he frowned and began to hurry. He was disturbed by what he saw.
On the bank of the pond crouched a naked figure.
The policeman went closer. He saw it was the old man, on his haunches; his arms were straight; the hands resting between his feet. He did not move as the policeman approached.
“Hallo, there!” said the policeman. He ducked to avoid the thorn bushes catching his helmet. “This won’t do, you know. You can get into trouble—”
He saw green slime in the old man’s beard, and the staring eyes. His spine chilled. With an unprofessional distaste, he quickly put out a hand and took the old man by the upper arm. It was cold. He shivered, and moved the arm gently.
Then he groaned and ran from the pond.
For the arm had come away at the shoulder: reeds and green water-plants and slime tumbled from the broken joint.
As the old man fell backwards, tiny green stitches glistened across his belly.
THE HOUR OF LETDOWN by E. B. White
When the man came in, car
rying the machine, most of us looked up from our drinks, because we had never seen anything like it before. The man set the thing down on top of the bar near the beerpulls. It took up an ungodly amount of room and you could see the bartender didn't like it any too well, having this big, ugly-looking gadget parked right there.
"Two rye-and-water," the man said.
The bartender went on puddling an Old-Fashioned that he was working on, but he was obviously turning over the request in his mind.
"You want a double?" he asked, after a bit.
"No," said the man. "Two rye-and-water, please." He stared straight at the bartender, not exactly unfriendly but on the other hand not affirmatively friendly.
Many years of catering to the kind of people that come into saloons had provided the bartender with an adjustable mind. Nevertheless, he did not adjust readily to this fellow, and he did not like the machine—that was sure. He picked up a live cigarette that was idling on the edge of the cash register, took a drag out of it, and returned it thoughtfully. Then he poured two shots of rye whiskey, drew two glasses of water, and shoved the drinks in front of the man. People were watching. When something a little out of the ordinary takes place at a bar, the sense of it spreads quickly all along the line and pulls the customers together.
The man gave no sign of being the center of attention. He laid a five-dollar bill down on the bar. Then he drank one of the ryes and chased it with water. He picked up the other rye, opened a small vent in the machine (it was like an oil cup) and poured the whiskey in, and then poured the water in.
The bartender watched grimly. "Not funny," he said in an even voice. "And furthermore, your companion takes up too much room. Why’n you put it over on that bench by the door, make more room here.”
“There’s plenty of room for everyone here,” replied the man.
“I ain’t amused,” said the bartender. “Put the goddam thing over near the door like I say. Nobody will touch it.”
The man smiled. “You should have seen it this afternoon,” he said. “It was magnificent. Today was the third day of the tournament. Imagine it—three days of continuous brainwork! And against the top players in the country, too. Early in the game it gained an advantage; then for two hours it exploited the advantage brilliantly, ending with the opponent’s king backed in a corner. The sudden capture of a knight, the neutralization of a bishop, and it was all over. You know how much money it won, all told, in three days of playing chess?”
