William Johnston - Missed It By That Much!

“The reasoning is off, though,” Hassan said. “Nobody is ever too old to enjoy $12.68. For instance, $12.68 would make a down-payment on a chain-driven saxophone. What’s nicer for old folks than making music?”

“Max, what I don’t understand,” 99 said, “is why we’re not in a trap.”

“The trap is a few yards on, 99,” Max said. “See? Right over there,” he added, pointing.

99 looked and saw a spectacular sight. Rising out of a filmy cloud bank were the majestic white spires of a cluster of medieval castles. And then, listening, she heard the sounds of laughter and singing.

“Max! It’s Paradise!” 99 gasped.

“At least, that’s what Whitestone wants us to think,” Max said.

“Of course! It’s an illusion. It has to be an illusion. Paradise wouldn’t be stuck away out here in the middle of the jungle, would it?”

“Naturally not,” Max replied. “It would be somewhere on a main highway. Nobody wants to live in a place that’s more than an hour’s drive from town. But, this Paradise, illusion though it clearly is, does have one advantage. Somewhere within those walls, I think we’ll find Whitestone. And once we do that, and take him prisoner, completing our mission will be much easier.”

“I’m with you, Max,” 99 said.

“I’ll wait here,” Hassan said.

“No, you better come with us,” Max said to him. “We may need you to pull off another miracle.”

“They won’t let me in,” Hassan said. “I’m too flat.”

“Nonsense. There is no discrimination in Paradise, Hassan.”

The three followed the high wall that surrounded the illusion, and finally came to a gate. A tall, white-haired, distinguished old man, dressed in a flowing white robe, greeted them with outstretched arms and a gentle smile on his face.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome,” the old man said. “I am your host. Come in, come in.”

“Thank you,” Max said. “This is Paradise, isn’t it?”

“That’s the technical term,” their host replied. “We have our own word for it, though. We have named it after its founder-the Caliph of Phornia.”

“Max. .” 99 whispered. “Have you noticed our host’s looks-tall, white-haired and distinguished-looking. .”

“Of course, 99. Do you think I’m blind? Now, I’ll show you what I’m going to do about it.”

Max clipped the old man with a karate chop, dropping him to the ground.

“Why did you do that?” the old man asked puzzledly.

“Because you’re tall, white-haired and distinguished-looking,” Max replied. “That means that you’re Whitestone, the ex-vaudeville magician, now a KAOS agent.”

“You must be out of your head,” the host said, rising. “Everybody in my family is tall, white-haired and distinguished-looking. But I forgive you. There is no hate here-only love.”

“Gee, I’m sorry about that karate chop,” Max said contritely.

“It is forgotten,” the host smiled. “Now, let me show you our Paradise.”

Max, 99 and Hassan started to enter. But the host put out a hand, halting Hassan.

“Not you, fella,” he said. “You’re too flat.”

“You mean there’s discrimination even here?” Max said.

“What discrimination?” the host replied. “Your friend is welcome, too. But he’ll have to use the special entrance for flat people. It’s around in back.”

“But isn’t that discrimination, having a special entrance?” Max said.

“Not a bit,” the host replied. “It’s a simple matter of efficiency. See this entrance here-how wide it is? If a flat person passed through here, he wouldn’t use all the space. The space, in other words, would go to waste. So, we built a special, skinny entrance for flat people. That’s all-discrimination has nothing to do with it.”

“You can’t argue with the reasoning,” Max said to Hassan. “So maybe you better go around to the back.”

Hassan ambled off, following the wall.

“Where will we meet him?” Max said to the host.

“You won’t,” the host smiled. “The special entrance for flat people is closed.”

“Closed?”

“Yes. You see, it’s so skinny that not even a flat person could get through it. So, since it was never used, we decided to close it.”

“Oh. Well, that makes sense,” Max said.

The host led them through the gate, into Paradise. The inhabitants, all dressed in flowing white robes, were singing and dancing in the streets.

“Is this all you people do here, just dance and sing?” Max asked.

“Yes. It’s what our founder, the Caliph, wanted. No toil. No violence. No hate. Only love. Eternal dancing and singing.”

“Constantly?”

“Of course not. We’re a modern society-we have the eight-hour day.”

“I see. What do you do then, after the eight hours?”

“Well, the singers and dancers switch to dancing and singing, and the dancers and singers switch to-”

“-singing and dancing,” Max nodded. Then, leaving the host’s side, he delivered a karate chop to the back of the neck of one of the singers, a tall, white-haired, distinguished-looking old man. The old man dropped to the ground.

“I suppose you had some reason for doing that,” the host smiled.

“This is the KAOS agent we came here to find,” Max explained. “I recognized him by his height, his white hair and his distinguished-looking appearance.”

“He’s my father,” the host said. “I told you, the whole family is tall, white-haired and distinguished-looking.”

Max bent down and helped the old gentleman to his feet. “Sorry about that,” he said.

“That’s all right,” the man replied. “It was kind of a nice change from all this singing and dancing. And I needed the rest, anyway.”

A crowd was gathering.

“How did you do that?” one of the other inhabitants said to Max. “I’ve never seen that done before.”

“That karate chop? It’s very simple. Here. . I’ll show you.”

He hit the host’s father another blow, flattening him once more.

“Thank you,” the old gentleman smiled up at him.

“Let me help you up,” Max said.

“No, I think I’ll stay down here. When you’ve been singing and dancing as long as I have, it’s a great relief to be able to lie flat on your face.”

“Is that what you do all day in the place where you come from?” another inhabitant asked Max.

“No, no,” Max replied. “We save karate chopping for special occasions. Mostly, we work.”

The people in the crowd looked at each other puzzledly.

“What is work?” one asked.

“Well, it’s. . uh, doing things,” Max replied. “There are many kinds of work. Brain surgery, for instance, is work. A brain surgeon is a doctor who opens up heads, and, assuming that he finds a brain, does. . ah, brain surgery.”

“Is it difficult?” another inhabitant asked.

“As I understand it, the opening up is a snap,” Max replied. “Any baseball pitcher with a wild arm can open up a head. But after that it can get complicated. Where I come from, you very seldom meet a brain surgeon who isn’t, at the very least, a high school graduate.”

“It sounds like fun!” a female inhabitant giggled.

“All right, break it up!” the host said, making shooing motions at the crowd. “Back to your singing and dancing.”

“All singing and dancing and no work makes Jack a dull boy,” one of the inhabitants complained hostilely.

“All right, Jack can have the day off,” the host said. “But the rest of you-let’s hear those high notes, let’s hear the tap, tap, tap of those dancing feet!”

The crowd began breaking up. But the dancing and singing did not resume. And the inhabitants were muttering grumpily.