Harlan Ellison - Approaching Oblivion - Road Signs On the Treadmill Toward Tomorrow

“So run,” I said. “What kind of dummies are you?”

“We are the Faithful.”

It gave me pause. Even Gentiles, even nut cases like these worshippers of Shmoe-ool, whoever, even they got to believe. It was nice. In a very dumb way.

“So what has all that got to do in even the slightest way with me, lady?”

“I'm horny.”

“Well, why not go in your Cathedral there and shtup one of your playmates?”

“They're worshipping.”

“To that statue that looks like a big bug picking its nose, with the dreck and crap and mud all over it?”

“Don't speak disrespectfully of Seymool.”

“I'll cut out my tongue.”

“That isn't necessary, just stick out your navel.”

“Lady, you got a dirty mouth.”

“You want to know where Kadak is?”

I won't tell what nasty indignities came next. It makes me very ashamed to even think about it. She had a dirty fingernail.

So I'll tell you only that when she was done ravaging my pupik and left me lying there against a mud-wall of a building, the pink shmootz running down my stomach, I knew that Kadak had been as lousy an Apostate as he had been a Jew. One afternoon, just like in the synagogue years before, he ran amuck and started biting the statue of that bug-God they got. Before they could pry him off, he had bitten off the kneecap of Shmoogle. So they threw him out of the Church. This nafkeh knew what had happened to him, because he had used her services, you could brechh from such a thought, and he still owed her some coins. So she'd followed him around, trying to get him to pay, and she'd seen he'd bounced from religion to religion until they accepted him as a Slave of the Rock.

So I got up and went to a fountain and washed myself the best way I could, and said a couple of quick prayers that I wouldn't get knocked up from that dirty finger, and I went looking for the Slaves of the Rock, still looking for that damned Kadak. I walked with an uneven roll, hop, unwind. You would, too, if you' d been ravished, butterfly.

Just a second you'd think on it, how would you feel if a flower grabbed you by the tuchis and stuck a pistil and stamen in your pupik? What? Oh, terrific. Butterflies don't have pupiks.

Talking to you, standing here in sand, is not necessarily the most sensational thing I've ever done, you want to know.

The Slaves of the Rock were all gathered in a valley just outside the city limits of Houmitz. The Governors wouldn't let them inside the city. Who can blame them. If you think those Apostates were pukers, you should only see the Rocks. Such cuties. It is to varf!

Big rocks they turned themselves into. With tongues like string, six or seven feet long, all rolled up inside. And when a krendl or a znigh or a buck-fly goes whizzing past, slurp! out comes that ugly tongue like a shot and snags it and wraps around and comes whipping back and smashes the bug all over the rock, and then the rock gets soft and spongy like a piece rotten fruit and absorbs all the dreck and crap and awfulness squished there. Oh, such terrifics, those Rocks. Just the kind of thing I would expect a Kadak to be when he couldn't stand being himself no more. Thank you oh so very greatly, Reb Jeshaia, for this looking mission.

So I found the head Rock and I stood there in that valley, all surrounded by Rocks going slurp! and squish! and sucking up bug food. This was not the best part of my life I'm telling you about.

“How do you do?”

I figured it was the most polite way to talk to a rock.

“How did you know I was the chief Slave?” the Rock said.

“You had the longest tongue.”

Slurp! A znigh on the wing, cruising by humming a tune, minding its own business, got it right in the punim, a tongue like a wet noodle, splat right in the punim and a quick overhead twist and squish! all over the Rock. It splattered on me, gooey and altogether puke-making. Definitely not the kind of individual to have a terrific dinner out with. The guderim was all over me.

“Excuse the mess,” said the chief Slave. He really sounded sorry.

“Think nothing,” I said. “That was a very cute little overhand twist you gave it there at the last minute.”

He seemed flattered. “You noticed that, did you?”

“How could I help? Such a class move.”

“You know, you're the first one who's ever noticed that. There have been lots of studies made, by all kinds of foreigners, from other worlds, other galaxies, even, but never once did one of them notice that move. What did you say your name was?”

The bug ooze was dripping down my stomach. “My name is Evsise, and I'm looking for a person who used to be a person named Kadak. I was given to understand that he'd become a Rock a few years ago. I have a great need to find this Kadak rock, he should drop dead already such a rotten time he's been making for me.”

“Listen,” said the chief Slave (as the remains of the znigh oozed down through the spongy surface), “I like you. Have you ever thought of converting?”

“Forget it.”

“No, really, I'm serious. To Worship The Rock is such an enriching experience, it really isn't smart to dismiss it without giving it a try. What do you say?”

I figured I had to be a little smartsy then, just a little. “Say, I wish I could. You got no idea what a nice proposition that is you're making to me. And in a quick second I'd take you up on it, but I got this one bissel tot of a problem.”

“Would you like to talk about it?”

A psychiatrist rock, yet. I really needed this.

“I'm afraid from bugs,” I said.

He didn't say anything for a moment. Then, “I see your point. Bugs are a very big part of our religion.”

“I can see that.”

“Ah, well. I'm sorry for you. But let's see if I can help you. What did you say his name was?”

“Kadak.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember now. What a creep.”

“That's him.”

“Let me see now,” said the Rock. “If I recall correctly, we threw him out of the order for being a disruptive influence, oh, it must have been fifteen years ago. He used to make the ugliest noises I've ever heard out of a Rock.”

“Snuffling.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Snuffling is what he did. A terrible snort noise, all wet and cloggy, it could make you sick to be near it.”

“Yes, that was it.”

“So what happened to him, I'm afraid to ask.”

“He reconstituted his atoms and became just like you again.”

“Not like me, please.”

“Well, I mean the same species.”

“And he went off?”

“Yes. He said he was going to try the Fleshists.”

“I wish you hadn't told me that.”

“I'm sorry.”

I sat down. Settled my tuchis right down between my rims, drew up my legs, and dropped my head into a half dozen of my hands. I was very glum.

“Would you like to sit on me?” the Rock asked.

It was a nice offer. “Thanks,” I said politely, looking at the last slimy ooze of the znigh on the Rock, “but I'm too miserable to be comfortable.”

“What do you need him for?” he asked.

So I explained the best I could-this was, after all, to a rock, a piece of stone, even if it could talk-about the minyan of ten. The chief Slave asked me why ten.

So I said, “On the Earth, a long time ago…you know about the Earth, right? Right. Well, on the Earth, a long time ago, God was going to give a terrific zetz to a place called Sodom. What it was, this Sodom, was a whole city full of Fleshists. Not a nice place.”