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

Billy Wilkins for his Reptile Farm. If he can use a blob, he’ll put you in one of the tanks with the big turtles and alligators. You think you’ll like them?”

“I am lonesome in this lost world,” I replied sadly, “and even the company of you peeled grubs is better than nothing. I am anxious to adopt a family and settle down here for what years of life I have left. It may be that I will find compatibility with the species you mention. I do not know what they are.”

“Hey, fellows, this blob isn’t a bad guy at all. I’d shake your hand; blob, if I knew where it was. Let’s go to Billy Wilkins’ place and sell him.”

II

We traveled to Billy Wilkins’ place. My friends were amazed when I took to the air and believed that I had deserted them. They had no cause to distrust me. Without them I would have had to rely on intuition to reach Billy Wilkins, and even then I would lack the proper introductions.

“Hey, Billy,” said my loudest friend, whose name was Cecil, “what will you give us for a blob? It flies and talks and isn’t a bad fellow at all. You’d get more tourists to come to your reptile show if you had a talking blob in it. He could sing songs and tell stories. I bet he could even play the guitar.”

“Well, Cecil, I’ll just give you all ten dollars for it and try to figure out what it is later. I’m a little ahead on my hunches now, so I can afford to gamble on this one. I can always pickle it and exhibit it as a genuine hippopotamus kidney.”

“Thank you, Billy. Take care of yourself, blob.”

“Goodbye for now, gentlemen,” I said. “I would like you to visit me some evening as soon as I am acclimated to my new surroundings. I will throw a whing-ding for you⁠—as soon as I find out what a whing-ding is.”

“My God,” said Billy Wilkins, “it talks! It really talks!”

“We told you it could talk and fly, Billy.”

“It talks, it talks,” said Billy. “Where’s that blasted sign painter? Eustace, come here. We got to paint a new sign!”

The turtles in the tank I was put into did have a sound basic philosophy which was absent in the walking grubs. But they were slow and lacking inner fire. They would not be obnoxious company, but neither would they give me excitement and warmth. I was really more interested in the walking grubs.

Eustace was a black grub, while the others had all been white; but like them he had no outside casing of his own, and like them he also staggered about on flesh stilts with his head in the air.

It wasn’t that I was naive or hadn’t seen bipeds before. But I don’t believe anyone ever became entirely accustomed to seeing a biped travel in its peculiar manner.

“Good afternoon, Eustace,” I said pleasantly enough. The eyes of Eustace were large and white. He was a more handsome specimen than the other grubs.

“That you talking, bub? Say, you really can talk, can’t you? I thought Mr. Billy was fooling. Now just you hold that expression a minute and let me get it set in my mind. I can paint anything, once I get it set in my mind. What’s your name, blob? Have blobs names?”

“Not in your manner. With us the name and the soul, I believe you call it, are the same thing and cannot be vocalized, so I will have to adopt a name of your sort. What would be a good name?”

“Bub, I was always partial to George Albert Leroy Ellery. That was my grandfather’s name.”

“Should I also have a family name?”

“Sure.”

“What would you suggest?”

“How about McIntosh?”

“That will be fine. I will use it.”

I talked to the turtles while Eustace was painting my portrait on tent canvas.

“Is the name of this world Florida?” I asked one of them. “The road signs said Florida.”

“World, world, world, water, water, water, glub, glug, glub,” said one of them.

“Yes, but is this particular world we are on named Florida?”

“World, world, water, water, glub,” said another.

“Eustace, I can get nothing from these fellows,” I called. “Is this world named Florida?”

“Mr. George Albert, you are right in the middle of Florida, the greatest state in the universe.”

“Having traveled, Eustace, I have great reservations that it is the greatest. But it is my new home and I must cultivate a loyalty to it.”

I went up in a tree to give advice to two young birds trying to construct a nest. This was obviously their first venture.

“You are going about it all wrong,” I told them. “First consider that this will be your home, and then consider how you can make your home most beautiful.”

“This is the way they’ve always built them,” said one of the birds.

“There must be an element of utility, yes,” I told them. “But the dominant motif should be beauty. The impression of expanded vistas can be given by long low walls and parapets.”

“This is the way they’ve always built them,” said the other bird.

“Remember to embody new developments,” I said. “Just say to yourself, ‘This is the newest nest in the world.’ Always say that about any task you attempt. It inspires you.”

“This is the way they’ve always built them,” said the birds. “Go build your own nest.”

“Mr. George Albert,” called Eustace, “Mr. Billy won’t like your flying around those trees. You’re supposed to stay in your tank.”

“I was only getting a little air and talking to the birds,” I said.

“You can talk to the birds?” asked Eustace.

“Cannot anyone?”

“I can, a little,” said Eustace. “I didn’t know anyone else could.”

But when Billy Wilkins returned and heard the report that I had been flying about, I was put in the snake house, in a cage that was tightly meshed top and sides. My cellmate was a surly python named Pete.

“See you stay on that side,” said Pete. “You’re too big for me to swallow. But