Robert Silverberg - The Mutant Season

His winter vacation will be over tomorrow. Not a moment too soon, either.

Another winter nearing its end. The mutants clear out this week. On Saturday they had a bunch of guests—mutants of some other type, no less! A different tribe. The visitors were tall and thin, like walking skeletons, very pale, very solemn. They don’t speak out loud: Cindy says they talk with their minds. Telepaths. They seem harmless enough, but I find this whole thing very scary. I imagine dozens of bizarre strains existing within mankind, alongside mankind, all kinds of grotesque mutant types breeding true and multiplying. Now that they’ve finally surfaced, now that we’ve discovered how many of them there really are, I started to wonder what new surprises lie ahead for us so-called normals. Will we find ourselves in a minority in another couple of generations? Will those of us who lack superpowers become third-class citizens?

I’m worried.

Summer. Fall. Winter. And here they come again. Maybe we can be friendlier with them this year.

Last year, seven houses. This year they’ve rented nine. It’s good to have so many people around, I guess. Before they started coming it was pretty lonesome here in the winters.

Looks like snow. Soon they’ll be here. Letter from Ellen, saying to get her old room ready. Time passes. It always does. Things change. They always do. Winter comes round in its season, and with it come our strange friends. Their ninth straight year here. Can’t wait to see Ellen.

Ellen and Tim arrived yesterday. You see them down on the beach? Yes, they’re a good-looking young couple. That’s my grandson with them. The one in the blue snowsuit. Look at him floating—bet he’s nine feet off the ground! Precocious, that’s him. Not old enough to walk yet. But he can levitate pretty well, let me tell you.