Short Fiction - R. A. Lafferty (i can read book club .txt) 📗

at him. Anthony had always had a healthy hatred for children and dogs, those twin harassers of the unfortunate and the maladjusted. Both run in packs, and both are cowardly attackers. And if either of them spots a weakness he will never let it go. That his father had been a junk dealer was not reason to hoot at him. But how did the children even know about that? Did they possess some fraction of the power that had come to him lately?

But he had strolled about the town for too long. He should have been at work at the filter center. Often they were impatient with him when he wandered off from his work, and Colonel Peter Cooper was waiting for him when he came in now.

“Where have you been, Anthony?”

“Walking. I talked to four men. I mentioned no subject in the province of the filter center.”

“Every subject is in the province of the filter center. And you know that our work here is confidential.”

“Yes, sir, but I do not understand the import of my work here. I would not be able to give out information that I do not have.”

“A popular misconception. There are others who might understand the import of it, and be able to reconstruct it from what you tell them. How do you feel?”

“Nervous, unwell, my tongue is furred, my kidneys⁠—”

“Ah yes, there will be someone here this afternoon to fix your kidneys. I had not forgotten. Is there anything that you want to tell me?”

“No, sir.”

Colonel Cooper had the habit of asking that of his workers in the manner of a mother asking a child if he wants to go to the bathroom. There was something embarrassing in his intonation.

Well, he did want to tell him something, but he didn’t know how to phrase it. He wanted to tell the colonel that he had newly acquired the power of knowing everyone in the world, that he was worried how he could hold so much in his head that was not noteworthy for its capacity. But he feared ridicule more than he feared anything else and he was a tangle of fears.

But he thought he would try it a little bit on his co-workers.

“I know a man named Walter Walloroy in Galveston,” he said to Adrian. “He drinks beer at the Gizmo bar, and is retired.”

“What is the superlative of so what?”

“But I have never been there,” said Anthony.

“And I have never been in Kalamazoo.”

“I know a girl in Kalamazoo. Her name is Greta Harandash. She is home today with a cold. She is prone to colds.”

But Adrian was a creature both uninterested and uninteresting. It is very hard to confide in one who is uninterested.

“Well, I will live with it a little while,” said Anthony. “Or I may have to go to a doctor and see if he can give me something to make all these people go away. But if he thinks my story is a queer one, he may report me back to the center, and I might be reclassified again. It makes me nervous to be reclassified.”

So he lived with it a while, the rest of the day and the night. He should have felt better. A man had come that afternoon and fixed his kidneys; but there was nobody to fix his nervousness and apprehensions. And his skittishness was increased when the children hooted at him as he walked in the morning. That hated epithet! But how could they know that his father had been a dealer in used metals in a town far away?

He had to confide in someone.

He spoke to Wellington who also worked in his room. “I know a girl in Beirut who is just going to bed. It is evening there now, you know.”

“That so? Why don’t they get their time straightened out? I met a girl last night that’s cute as a correlator key, and kind of shaped like one. She doesn’t know yet that I work in the center and am a restricted person. I’m not going to tell her. Let her find out for herself.”

It was no good trying to tell things to Wellington. Wellington never listened. And then Anthony got a summons to Colonel Peter Cooper, which always increased his apprehension.

“Anthony,” said the colonel, “I want you to tell me if you discern anything unusual. That is really your job, to report anything unusual. The other, the paper shuffling, is just something to keep your idle hands busy. Now tell me clearly if anything unusual has come to your notice.”

“Sir, it has.” And then he blurted it all out. “I know everybody! I know everybody in the world. I know them all in their billions, every person. It has me worried sick.”

“Yes, yes, Anthony. But tell me, have you noticed anything odd? It is your duty to tell me if you have.”

“But I have just told you! In some manner I know every person in the world. I know the people in Transvaal, I know the people in Guatemala. I know everybody.”

“Yes, Anthony, we realize that. And it may take a little getting used to. But that isn’t what I mean. Have you (besides that thing that seems out of the way to you) noticed anything unusual, anything that seems out of place, a little bit wrong?”

“Ah⁠—besides that and your reaction to it, no, sir. Nothing else odd. I might ask, though, how odd can a thing get? But other than that⁠—no, sir.”

“Good, Anthony. Now remember, if you sense anything odd about anything at all, come and tell me. No matter how trivial it is, if you feel that something is just a little bit out of place, then report it at once. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, sir.”

But he couldn’t help wondering what it might be that the colonel would consider a little bit odd.

Anthony left the center and walked. He shouldn’t have. He knew that they became impatient with him when he wandered off from his work.

“But I have to think.