Arthur Zagat - The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume IX

Which he proceeded to do. If it was a joke to him, it sure wasn’t to me, even if they weren’t in very deep. Finally he was done. He stood there clucking like an old hen with no family but a brass doorknob. Something didn’t seem quite right to him.

Uncle John gave me a good belt of the bourbon he’d been thoughtful enough to pack along.

“What was it you say hit you, boy?” Doc Grandy wanted to know, reaching absently for the bottle.

“Buckshot, I suppose. What was it you just hacked out of me?”

“Hah!” He passed the bottle back to Uncle John. “Not like any buckshot I ever saw. Little balls, or shells of metallic stuff all right. But not lead. Peculiar. M-mph. You know what, boy?”

“You’re mighty liberal with the iodine, I know that. What else?”

“You say you saw a big flash of light. Come to think on it, I saw a streak of light up the mountainside about that same time. I was out on the porch. You know, boy, I believe you got something to feel right set up about. I believe you been hit by a meteor. If it weren’t—ha-ha—pieces of one of them flying saucers you read about.”

Well, I didn’t feel so set up about it, then or ever. But it did turn out he was right.

Doc Grandy got a science professor from Eastern State Teachers College there in Poxville to come look. He agreed that they were meteor fragments. The two of them phoned it in to the city papers during a slow week and, all in all, it was a big thing. To them. To me it was nothing much but a pain in the rear.

The meteor, interviewed scientists were quoted as saying, must have almost burned up coming through the atmosphere, and disintegrated just before it hit me. Otherwise I’d have been killed. The Poxville professor got very long-winded about the peculiar shape and composition of the pieces, and finally carried off all but one for the college museum. Most likely they’re still there. One I kept as a souvenir, which was silly. It wasn’t a thing I wanted to remember—or, as I found later, would ever be able to forget. Anyway, I lost it.

All right. That was that and, except for a lingering need to sit on very soft cushions, the end of it. I thought. We went back to town.

Uncle John felt almost as guilty about the whole thing as if he had shot me himself and, in November, when he found about old Bert Winginheimer interviewing girl applicants for checker jobs at home in his apartment, I got a nice promotion.

Working my way up, I was a happy, successful businessman.

And then, not all at once but gradually, a lot of little things developed into problems. They weren’t really problems either, exactly. They were puzzles. Nothing big but—well, it was like I was sort of being made to do, or not do, certain things. Like being pushed in one direction or another. And not necessarily the direction I personally would have picked. Like—

Well, one thing was shaving.

I always had used an ordinary safety razor—nicked myself not more than average. It seemed OK to me. Never cared too much for electric razors; it didn’t seem to me they shaved as close. But—I took to using an electric razor now, because I had to.

One workday morning I dragged myself to the bathroom of my bachelor apartment to wash and shave. Getting started in the morning was never a pleasure to me. But this time seemed somehow tougher than usual. I lathered my face and put a fresh blade in my old razor.

For some reason, I could barely force myself to start. “Come on, Johnny boy!” I told myself. “Let’s go!” I made myself take a first stroke with the razor. Man! It burned like fire. I started another stroke and the burning came before the razor even touched my face. I had to give up. I went down to the office without a shave.

That was no good, of course, so at the coffee break I forced myself around the corner to the barber shop. Same thing! I got all lathered up all right, holding myself by force in the chair. But, before the barber could touch the razor to my face, the burning started again.

I stopped him. I couldn’t take it.

And then suddenly the idea came to me that an electric razor would be the solution. It wasn’t, actually, just an idea; it was positive knowledge. Somehow I knew an electric razor would do it. I picked one up at the drug store around the corner and took it to the office. Plugged the thing in and went to work. It was fine, as I had known it would be. As close a shave? Well, no. But at least it was a shave.

Another thing was my approach to—or retreat from—drinking. Not that I ever was a real rummy, but I hadn’t been one to drag my feet at a party. Now I got so moderate it hardly seemed worth bothering with at all. I could only take three or four drinks, and that only about once a week. The first time I had that feeling I should quit after four, I tried just one—or two—more. At the first sip of number five, I thought the top of my head would blast off. Four was the limit. Rigidly enforced.

All that winter, things like that kept coming up. I couldn’t drink more than so much coffee. Had to take it easy on smoking. Gave up ice skating—all of a sudden the cold bothered me. Stay up late nights and chase around? No more; I could hardly hold my eyes open after ten.

That’s the way it went.

I had these feelings, compulsions actually. I couldn’t control them. I couldn’t go against them. If I did, I would suffer for it.

True, I had to admit that probably all these things were really good for me. But it got to where everything I did was something that was good for me—and that was bad. Hell, it isn’t natural for a young fellow just out of college to live like a fussy old man of seventy with a grudge against the undertaker. Life became very dull!

About the only thing I could say for it was, I was sure healthy.

It was the first winter since I could remember that I never caught a cold. A cold? I never once sniffled. My health was perfect; never even so much as a pimple. My dandruff and athlete’s foot disappeared. I had a wonderful appetite—which was lucky, since I didn’t have much other recreation left. And I didn’t even gain weight!

Well, those things were nice enough, true. But were they compensation for the life I was being forced to live? Answer: Uh-uh. I couldn’t imagine what was wrong with me.

Of course, as it turned out the following spring, I didn’t have to imagine it. I was told.

It was a Friday. After work I stopped by Perry’s Place with Fred Schingle and Burk Walters from the main accounting office. I was hoping it would turn out to be one of my nights to have a couple—but no. I got the message and sat there, more or less sulking, in my half of the booth.

Fred and Burk got to arguing about flying saucers. Fred said yes; Burk, no. I stirred my coffee and sat in a neutral corner.

“Now look here,” said Burk, “you say people have seen things. All right. Maybe some of them have seen things—weather balloons, shadows, meteors maybe. But space ships? Nonsense.”

“No nonsense at all. I’ve seen pictures. And some of the reports are from airline pilots and people like that, who are not fooled by balloons or meteors. They have seen ships, I tell you, ships from outer space. And they are observing us.”

“Drivel!”

“It is not!”

“It’s drivel. Now look, Fred. You too, Johnny, if you’re awake over there. How long have they been reporting these things? For years. Ever since World War II.

“All right. Ever since the war, at least. So. Suppose they were space ships? Whoever was in them must be way ahead of us technically. So why don’t they land? Why don’t they approach us?”

Fred shrugged. “How would I know? They probably have their reasons. Maybe they figure we aren’t worth any closer contact.”