Stories From the Old Attic
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Robert Harris >> Stories From the Old Attic
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Another odd effect of the mental distraction was an unnatural craving
for firewood. Unlike the other natives in the area, the members of
this tribe collected--and stole, and cheated and betrayed for--log upon
stick to pile next to their huts, even though in twenty very cold years
they couldn't use half as much as they already possessed. A few
natives had been crushed to death by collapsing woodpiles; many more
had died from fighting over decidedly unimpressive old branches.
One day a doctor came from the East to the village, and he immediately
recognized the symptoms of the disease (a common one) for which he
carried the cure. He went gladly and confidently to the chief of the
tribe and announced his ability to remedy the ills of the people,
expecting to be praised and welcomed for his offer of help. To his
surprise, however, the chief rebuffed him with contempt and asserted
boldly that there was nothing at all wrong with his people, that they
had always acted that way since he could remember, that it was the
human condition, and that they were all perfectly happy. Then,
after ordering the doctor to leave immediately, the chief jumped
out of a tree into the tribal latrine and was unavailable for any
further discussion.
Substantially taken aback but firm in his resolution, the doctor
decided to take his offer directly to the natives. Most received
him with laughter, contempt, or violence; many ignored him; a few
beat him up; some said he just wanted to get at their firewood;
most said they, like the chief, felt fine. But a dozen or so
natives came to him privately where he had been tossed into the
bushes after his most recent beating, and asked him for the medicine.
"We are somehow not really happy living like this," they said, "even
though it is the way of the world." The doctor gladly gave them the
medicine, and in a few days they began to show remarkable signs of
recovery. No longer desiring to eat dirt or jump out of trees, these
natives corrected their diet, improved in health, and began to apply
themselves to such activities as making baskets, repairing their huts,
caring for their children, and gathering food. Some even began to
question the wisdom of collecting stacks of wood more than twenty
feet high.
Such wild, unusual, and anti-social behavior did not go unnoticed by
the other natives, who quickly ostracized the cured natives from the
tribal camp, calling them enemies of the current system. And even
though many of the delirious natives began to suspect that the cured
natives were somehow better off than they, and that there might be
more to living than sleeping on dunghills and finding new trees to
jump out of, resistance to the cure was strong. First, almost all
the educated and respectable people--the chief and his council--spoke
against it, and the example of their sophistication and wealth (the
chief's woodpile was ninety feet high) was very strong. Many others,
from the gossips to the wise man, said that the old way was right,
and that the tribe had always behaved that way. There were few real
individuals in the tribe, so that even though scores would have been
glad to try the cure, they were afraid to stand against the rest and
did what everyone else was doing, which was nothing.
The witch doctor had a stronger argument against the new regimen. He
pointed out that the cure was harder to take than the cures he
dispensed. The Eastern doctor's cure was painful, and though many of
the witch doctor's cures caused vomiting, hives, convulsions, and
hallucinations, the natives were all familiar with these effects and
attributed them to swallowing the medicine wrong, rather than to the
medicine itself. But who knew what the fate of the cured natives
would eventually be?
The cured natives said they felt fine, but they might have been lying.
And who was fool enough to trust an outsider, a stranger, rather than
the familiar witch doctor, who cursed those who took the cure because
they rejected his medicines as false and pernicious? The cured natives
said that a commitment must be made to trust the Eastern doctor; this
was too difficult or uncertain a step for many, especially in the face
of the social pressure around them. A decision accompanied by fear,
decried by the important, and rejected by society could not be made
by everyone.
After the time of his stay was over, the Eastern doctor showed the
cured natives how to compound the medicine and then left. As
generations passed, most of the natives remained loyal to the
dunghill, but a few took the cure.
Love
Otto and his girlfriend Brissa were driving merrily down the middle
of the road one rainy night on their way to a party when they
approached a little old lady trying vainly to change a flat tire.
"Gee, that's too bad," said Brissa.
"Yeah," agreed Otto.
"Maybe we should help her," added Brissa.
"We? You mean me. I'm not going to get wet. Besides, what good
would it do me to help her? I don't even know who she is, and she
probably doesn't have any money, or at least not enough to make
getting wet worthwhile."
"But it would make you feel good to do a good deed," Brissa offered.
"Well, it makes me feel good to stay in here and keep dry,"
snapped Otto.
"It would make me happy, Otto," said Brissa, in her softest, most
feminine voice.
"You? Boy, you're awfully selfish. Always thinking about yourself.
You know, I wasn't put here just to cater to your stupid, idle
whims." As his anger rose, Otto sped up a little, just in time to
hit a large puddle near the little old lady, drenching her in a sheet
of muddy water.
"Stop, Otto!" Brissa cried, exasperated. "I'll help her."
"Aw shut up," Otto snarled. "Do you think I'm going to walk into the
party with a girl who's all wet and disheveled, looking like a
drowned rat? You want people to laugh at me? Think of somebody
besides yourself for a change. Now fix your makeup and keep your
mouth shut."
Indecision
Once upon a time a dozen or so curious travelers rented a boat for a
cruise out to an enchanted island, where, it was said, Athena sat on
her throne dispensing rich gifts to all. The trip was smooth enough
for awhile, with only a few rough seas to endure and an occasional
shoal to avoid. But then one morning one of the passengers discovered
that the boat was taking on water.
"We're sinking, we're sinking!" some of the people cried.
"No," said the captain, "the flow is not yet so fast. If we will get
some buckets and bail the water out, everything will be all right."
This solution seemed simple enough.
However, a dissension soon arose among the travelers about who would
do the bailing, and what buckets would be used. "Allow me," said
one. "It is my duty in this circumstance to bail, and I have here a
very solid bucket suitable to the task."
"Beg pardon, sir," said another, "but I must be the bailer. It is
written in the laws of the sea that a person of my parts must do
this labor. Besides, I have a superior bucket."
"Wait," said a third. "This gentleman's bucket is all right, but I
think I should be allowed to help bail, since I am a fellow passenger."
Everyone adduced many weighty, true, and worthy philosophical
arguments for his position, and cited laws, ethics, and political
and procedural rules, but no person succeeded in convincing any
other. Soon, therefore, the discussion ceased to remain at this
level, but grew rather heated, and shouts and aspersions began to
fill the air, with perhaps even a trace of ill will.
"I refuse to allow anyone to bail this boat unless he uses this
bucket, which, as any fool can see, is the only true bucket, clearly
superior to all others," screamed one.
"And I absolutely refuse to see this boat bailed unless I can take part
in the work," yelled another.
Now these passengers all had some interest in seeing the boat bailed,
and most hoped that this impasse could be overcome to the
satisfaction of everyone. But since no one knew exactly what to
do, nothing was done.
"Perhaps we will get to the enchanted island without bailing the
boat," hoped one.
It was not to be so. While the travelers continued to debate, some
suggesting unworkable alternatives and the others remaining
unyielding, the boat continued to fill, until at one sudden and
horrifying moment, the water rushed in over the gunwales and across
the deck. The hold filled rapidly, and in spite of every man's
frenzied efforts, the boat sank, carrying the stubborn but now
too-late-repentant travelers, together with their screaming wives
and virgin daughters, to the very bottom of the sea.
The Limit
One day a man was walking through a forest and got lost. "Nothing
could be worse than this," he said. Then it got dark. "Lost in
the dark. What could be worse?" he asked. Then it got cold.
"Now nothing could possibly be worse," he said as he shivered and
stumbled around. But then it began to rain. "How could anything
be worse than this?" he asked himself. But then the rain turned
to snow and the wind came up. "This is absolutely the worst
possible thing that could ever happen," he said. "There's nothing
left." But then he fell and broke his arm. "Well, that's it," he
thought. "This is the worst of all." But as he lay in the snow, a
tree branch broke off and fell on him, breaking both his legs.
"This is worse than the worst," he thought. "But at least nothing
else can happen." But then he heard the sound of wolves coming his
way. The noise was so startling that the man awoke and discovered
that he had been dreaming. "What a dream I had," he said, shaking
himself. "Nothing could be worse."
How Sir Reginald Helped the King
Once upon a time in the kingdom of Plebnia, the king was having a
real problem with his letters to the outlying regions. His messages
always seemed to arrive too late. No matter how early he mailed them,
his Christmas cards arrived in July and his Valentines arrived on
December 24, creating confusion and uncertainty among the people
and giving the Problem Element an excuse to arouse the Rabble
against him.
After some thought, the king had an idea: he would give ten million
greedos (their monetary unit) and the hand of his totally gorgeous
daughter to the person who could make his mail arrive the fastest.
His loyal subjects immediately rushed to solve the problem, setting
themselves to this task with an enthusiasm that an objective observer
might well have described as manic. People ran back and forth, up and
down, muttering, "Move the mail, shove the mail, fling it, sling it.
Run. Hurry. Shoot the mail, toss it, heave it," and such like.
Included in the many and varied offered solutions were proposals to
build a rocket sled, crisscross the countryside with pneumatic tubes,
use fast horses stimulated by strong coffee, borrow a dragster from
the sports arena, set up a reliable airline, make a jet-powered
conveyor belt, or just use ordinary mailmen under the threat of
immediate, violent death if they delayed the mail.
However, Sir Reginald, the young, handsome hero of this tale, out of
the goodness of his heart, his love for the king, and the excitement
of the challenge (and scarcely considering the money or the girl more
than four or five hours a day), decided to take a few minutes to
examine the problem before he tried to solve it.
"Just what is it the king wants to do?" he asked himself. "He wants
to send his mail quickly. And just what is mail? It's a message,
information. Information, hmm. Information can be sent
electronically, by wire or transmission. Yes. Hmm. Yes--A
transmitter on one end and a printer on the other end would permit
the king's mail to be sent at the speed of light. That should pretty
much squash Sir Rodney's proposal to use battery-powered frisbees."
Well, what can we say? The brilliance of this proposal was so
obvious that Sir Reginald was declared the winner and the plan was
immediately instituted. The mail began to arrive on time, the king
soon became popular again in the outlying regions, and Sir Reginald
retired to spend the rest of his days in a spiffy castle on top of
a hill, with his totally gorgeous wife and, later, seventeen children.
How the Noble Percival Won the Fair Arissa
Once upon a time in a kingdom by the sea, two knights stood talking
about the strategy of battle when their conversation was interrupted
by the sight of the beautiful Arissa as she walked upon the green.
"Forsooth, I think I'll ask her for a date," said Sir Wishful, one
of the knights. "Ditto," said Sir Percival, the other knight.
So Sir Wishful sauntered up to Arissa in his most elegant and
refined manner, and, twirling his mustache genteelly, said, "Arissa,
my dear, methinks I'd like to take you out to dinner."
Arissa sized up Sir Wishful a moment and then replied, "Sorry,
Wishy, you're not my type."
Sir Percival, seeing his rival stumble off in a confused,
embarrassed, humiliated, dazed--oh you get the idea. Anyway,
Sir Percival saw his opportunity and approached Arissa. "Arissa,"
he said, "how about a date anon?" Only a moment was needed for
the look of mild surprise to alter the beautiful maiden's features,
after which she laughed loudly in Sir Percival's face for a good
ten minutes.
Well, both Sir Wishful and Sir Percival retired to lick their wounds
and lament the fate of men in this whole romantic con game, and Sir
Wishful soon enough decided that he liked the taste of trout just
about as well as the taste of women's lips, so he grabbed his bait
and tackle and headed for the river. Sir Percival, on the other hand,
really thought Arissa might be worth another attempt, and he
rationalized with himself that perhaps she didn't quite understand
the question. "Or belikes the maiden is just shy," he thought.
So Sir Percival, seeing on another day the fair, delicate Arissa
using her footman's coat to clean the mud off her shoes, again
approached and asked: "Arissa, sweet one, won't you go out with
me sometime?"
Arissa generously gave Sir Percival a look that could have frozen
several pounds of choice lobster, and replied, "You must be kidding."
Sir Percival thought about this answer for a couple of days, and
still finding his inclination toward the gentle Arissa unchanged,
he thought to make a clarificatory attempt, just in case the maiden
did believe he had been kidding. Approaching her the next morning,
Sir Percival said, "Kind Arissa, I wasn't kidding the other day.
Ifay, I'd like to date you." Only the author's extreme commitment
to complete truth forces him to admit that a tiny trace of irritation
now flashed, but only for the briefest of moments, across the lovely
Arissa's brow. "Get lost, creep," she said, clearly and distinctly.
Well, needless to say, by now most of the other knights in the realm
were getting sufficient jollies out of Sir Percival's romantic
endeavors. Even Sir Wishful had joined in the laughter, ridicule,
and derision that seasoned Sir Percival's every meal with his friends.
This hilarity touched the young knight and caused him to spend several
days in contemplation of his past behavior. "Am I gaining or losing
ground with Arissa?" he asked himself. "Rather had she said, 'Get
lost' before she said, 'You must be kidding,' for as it stands, I
can't say I'm making much progress."
But "Steadfast" was probably Sir Percival's middle name (or his
uncle's middle name, anyway), so the knight decided to approach
Arissa yet again. After all, Arissa seemed to be pretty okay,
and Sir Percival wanted a date. In a few days, then, Arissa
heard a familiar question in a familiar voice: "Arissa, sweetheart,
let me ensconce you in my carriage and take you on a date." To
which Arissa replied, "Sorry Perce, I'm busy. I've got to
wash my hair."
To which the knight: "Well, when could you go then?"
To which Arissa: "Well, I'll be busy for the next ten years. I
mean, I've got stuff to do, forsooth."
Well, our hero was getting a bit despondent about all this, and for
sure his friends weren't helping much. Far from their giving him
encouragement, their laughter rang so constantly in Sir Percival's
head that he began to wonder if he was still quite sane. And not
a few of his friends hinted here and there that psychiatric
consultation might be useful to the knight, to get him over his
ridiculous interest in the agreeable Arissa.
About this time it so happened that as Sir Percival was on his way
to visit Sir Wishful for a nice dinner of trout and onions, he quite
unexpectedly came upon Arissa, lovely as ever, sitting near the
village waterfall and picking her teeth. Almost out of habit, Sir
Percival spoke: "Arissa, sugar, would you like to go out with
me sometime?"
To which Arissa: "Oh, Perce, didn't I tell you I was busy?"
To which Sir Percival: "Yeah, fair one, but I thought maybe you'd
had a cancellation or something."
To which Arissa: "Well, if I did have a cancellation, I wouldn't
fill it up with you. Besides, what would we do?"
To which Sir Percival: "We could go to dinner."
To which Arissa: "Like where, ifay?"
To which Sir Percival: "Andre's French Victuals."
To which Arissa: "And when would this be?"
To which Sir Percival: "I dunno. How about tomorrow night?"
To which--well, anyway, to her own surprise, to the astonishment of
Sir Percival, and to the great confusion of the rest of the kingdom,
Arissa finally actually agreed to this scenario and the next evening
the two young people went to Andre's.
Arissa, of course, ordered the eleven most expensive things on the
menu, for she was still intending to discourage Sir Percival, but
the knight was willing to put up with only a glass of water for his
own dinner, because the success he had enjoyed so far with the
desirable Arissa had quite taken away his appetite anyway.
In the course of the evening, Arissa happened to remark, "I wish
they had apricots on the menu here. You know, I really love them.
I could eat them by the ton."
To which Sir Percival: "Why, Arissa, my dove, I own an orchard of
apricot trees."
To which Arissa: "Really? Oh, Perce." When she pronounced his name,
the young maiden sighed and a glisten appeared in one or both eyes.
Well, from here the story gets pretty mushy, so we'd better make it
short. This delightful couple soon held hands; they discovered anon
that their lips fit together pretty well, Arissa's ten years' worth
of plans were miraculously cancelled, and Sir Percival finally asked
the Big Question, to which Arissa replied, "Well, okay."
And so they were married and lived happily ever after, with Arissa
often telling Sir Percival how she had secretly loved him from the
first time she saw him, while Sir Percival, each time he kissed
Arissa's apricot-flavored lips, congratulated himself for his skill
in winning her.
Truth Carved in Stone
A wise old philosopher was walking through the park with a young man
and his true love when they came upon a beautiful statue of a Nereid.
"Come here," he said to the youth, "and touch this statue." The young
man put his hand on the statue's arm and felt of it closely, though
he did not seem surprised at what he found. "Now the girl," the old
man continued; so the lover also felt of his girlfriend's arm, in the
same way. "And now," the man said, "tell me what you have learned."
"I'm not sure," the young man began. "The statue is hard and cold;
the girl is warm and soft. Her flesh yields when I press; the marble
does not."
"You have learned well," concluded the philosopher, "and if each of
you remembers and lives by these truths, you will have a happy
life together."
How Sir Philo Married a Beautiful Princess
Instead of the Woman He Loved
Once upon a time--and it had to be pretty long ago, as you will
see--there lived a bunch of people in a little inland kingdom. The
king, Cleon the Modest, was basically a good fellow, though he was
not known for his brilliance in government. Instead, he was known
chiefly for his glowing and nubile daughter, Jennifrella, a girl,
though proud and a trifle petulant, so freighted with beauty and
charms that pretty much every bachelor--and not a few married
men--in the kingdom dreamed about her, whether awake or asleep.
Truly, she maketh my pen tremble even as I write this.
Now Cleon was desirous of marrying off this legendary beauty as soon
as possible so that he could be free of the constant entreaties for
her hand, free of the frequent bills for supplying her dressing table,
and free to spend more time in his rose garden, which he truly loved.
The king would have had little trouble choosing the richest suitor in
the kingdom for his daughter, except that there were no exceptionally
wealthy bachelors in the realm, and those of modest wealth all had
castles and money boxes of essentially similar dimensions.
For her part, the Princess Jennifrella was repletely enamored of Sir
Fassade, a handsome, dashing, suave, carefree young knight who most
people, when they faced reality, agreed would almost certainly become
her husband and therefore the next king.
King Cleon, however, was desirous of exercising his regal authority
in having a say in who would follow him on the throne. And faced
with what he clearly saw was an impossible number of choices, he
therefore sought the opinion of his favorite advisor, the young Sir
Philo. Now, persons of a cynical bent might begin to think that Sir
Philo, an eligible bachelor himself and not at all impervious to
feminine gorgeousness, would argue craftily that he himself was the
most suitable and worthy candidate. This might have been so but for
two equally powerful reasons. First, Sir Philo, brave, skilled, and
thoughtful, was a man of integrity who would never abuse his position
as the king's advisor to advance his own interests, even in a matter
so emotionally and biologically compelling as that before us. The
other reason is that Sir Philo was already in love with another. It
was a gentle love, like a deep river, quiet and calm on the surface
but fully substantial and powerful in its flow.
His happiness, the Lady Lucinda, though not of outward visage the
equal of Jennifrella, was handsome enough for the young knight's
daydreams. When asked what attracted him to Lucinda, he would answer
ambiguously or mutter something about the light in her eyes. What
joy he got sitting with her under a tree in the bright spring, gazing
upon her and dallying with her fingers or brushing a love-sick gnat
from her collar. But what really twirled Sir Philo's cuff links was
Lucinda's wit, her laugh, her playfulness. He relished taking the
sprightly maid hand in hand on long walks, listening to the music of
her voice and to the sentiments accompanying the music. How he loved
to play with her tresses, or when her hair was up, to steal up behind
her and kiss her unexpectedly on the back of the neck: for she would
invariably produce a little shriek of surprise and delight and
embarrassment, and then turning to him, her cheeks glowing
irresistibly, attempt to glare and call him "monster," only to spoil
her mock anger by bursting into giggles or even outright laughter.
She would chide him and call him "rogue," and "impertinent," and he
would say something like, "I'll put a stop to this abuse," and then
their lips, who were old friends by now, would once again meet for
fellowship. Of course, Lucinda would struggle just enough to
enhance the enjoyment, until laughter or an unexpected visitor broke
their embrace.
Well, enough mush. The point is that an unspoken understanding had
developed between them so that only a few months after the rest of
the kingdom knew it, they realized that they would one day wed and
together laugh and cry through the years until death should wake them.
But to return to the weightier problem of King Cleon. Upon being
asked for his advice, Sir Philo recommended that the king choose from
among the following options. One, his majesty could choose the wisest
and most just suitor for Jennifrella, for such a man would not only
make a good king, but he would most likely be a decent husband, too.
Or secondly, the king might seek a foreign alliance and marry his
daughter to another king's son. This was an alternative which Sir
Philo did not recommend, but mentioned only for the sake of
completeness. And finally, the last possibility would be to let
Jennifrella choose for herself--in which case, everyone knew that
Sir Fassade would be the next king, and he, opined Sir Philo, would
be "acceptable," producing a government no worse than the current
one. (Since I have already described the king's advisor as
"thoughtful," I shall now add "tactful" and note that the final
participial phrase of the previous sentence was thought but not
uttered by the knight.) As for the kind of husband Sir Fassade would
make, the princess would have no one to blame but herself.
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