Clifford Simak - All Flesh Is Grass and Other Stories

Tupper made a noise like a ringing telephone and I wondered how a telephone had gotten in there with that lone, lost cat of his. Perhaps, I thought, the cat had found a telephone, maybe in a booth out in the dark and dripping woods, and would find out where it was and how it might get home.

The telephone rang again and there was a little wait. Then Tupper said to me, most impatiently, "Go ahead and talk. This call is for you."

"What's that?" I asked, astonished.

"Say hello," said Tupper. "Go ahead and answer."

"All right," I said, just to humour him. "Hello." His voice changed to Nancy's voice, so perfect an imitation that I felt the presence of her.

"Brad!" she cried. "Brad, where are you?" Her voice was high and gasping, almost hysterical.

"Where are you, Brad?" she asked. "Where did you disappear to?"

"I don't know," I said, "that I can explain. You see…"

"I've looked everywhere," she said, in a rush of words. "We've looked everywhere. The whole town was looking for you. And then I remembered the phone in Father's study, the one without a dial, you know. I knew that it was there, but I'd never paid attention to it. I thought it was a model of some sort, or maybe just a decoration for the desk or a gag of some sort.

"But there was a lot of talk about the phones in Stiffy's shack, and Ed Adler told me about the phone that was in your office. And it finally dawned on me that maybe this phone that Father had was the same as those other phones.

"But it took an awful long time for it to dawn on me. So I went into his study and I saw the phone and I just stood and looked at it — because I was scared, you see. I was afraid of it and I was afraid to use it because of what I might find out. But I screwed my courage up and I lifted the receiver and there was an open line and I asked for you. I knew it was a crazy thing to do, but… What did you say, Brad?"

"I said I don't know if I can explain exactly where I am. I know where I am, of course, but I can't explain it so I'll be believed."

"Tell me. Don't you fool around. Just tell me where you are."

"I'm in another world. I walked out of the garden…"

"You walked where!"

"I was just walking in the garden, following Tupper's tracks and…"

"What kind of track is that?"

"Tupper Tyler," I said. "I guess I forgot to tell you that he had come back."

"But he couldn't," she told me. "I remember him. That was ten years ago."

"He did come back," I said. "He came back this morning. And then he left again. I was following his tracks…"

"You told me," she said. "You were following him and you wound up in another world. Where is this other world?" She was like any other woman. She asked the damndest questions.

"I don't know exactly, except that it's in time. Perhaps only a second away in time."

"Can you get back?"

"I'm going to try," I said. "I don't know if I can."

"Is there anything I can do to help — that the town can do to help?"

"Listen, Nancy, this isn't getting us anywhere. Tell me, where is your father?"

"He's down at your place. There are a lot of people there. Hoping that you will come back."

"Waiting for me?"

"Well, yes. You see, they looked everywhere and they know you aren't in the village, and there are a lot of them convinced that you know all about this…"

"About the barrier, you mean."

"Yes, that's what I mean."

"And they are pretty sore?"

"Some of them," she said.

"Listen, Nancy…"

"Don't say that again. I am listening."

"Can you go down and see your father?"

"Of course I can," she said.

"All right. Go down and tell him that when I can get back — if I can get back — I'll need to talk with someone. Someone in authority. Someone high in authority. The President, perhaps, or someone who's close to the President. Maybe someone from the United Nations…"

"But, Brad, you can't ask to see the President!"

"Maybe not," I said. "But as high as I can get. I have something our government has to know. Not only ours, but all the governments. Your father must know someone he can talk to. Tell him I'm not fooling. Tell him it's important."

"Brad," she said. "Brad, you're sure you aren't kidding? Because if you are, this could be an awful mess."

"Cross my heart," I said. "I mean it, Nancy, it's exactly as I've said. I'm in another world, an alternate world…"

"Is it a nice world, Brad?"

"It's nice enough," I said. "There's nothing here but flowers."

"What kind of flowers?"

"Purple flowers. My father's flowers. The same kind that are back in Millville. The flowers are people, Nancy. They're the ones that put up the barrier."

"But flowers can't be people, Brad." Like I was a kid. Like she had to humour me. Asking me if it was a nice world and telling me that flowers never could be people. All sweet reasonableness.

I held in my anger and my desperation.

"I know they can't," I said. "But just the same as people. They are intelligent and they can communicate."

"You have talked with them?"

"Tupper talks for them. He's their interpreter."

"But Tupper was a drip."

"Not back here he isn't. He's got things we haven't."

"What kind of things? Brad, you have to be…"

"You will tell your father?"

"Right away," she said. "I'll go down to your place…"

"And, Nancy…"

"Yes."

"Maybe it would be just as well if you didn't tell where I am or how you got in touch. I imagine the village is pretty well upset."

"They are wild," said Nancy.

"Tell your father anything you want. Tell him everything. But not the rest of them. He'll know what to tell them. There's no use in giving the village something more to talk about."

"All right," she said. "Take care of yourself. Come back safe and sound."

"Sure," I said.

"You can get back?"

"I think I can. I hope I can."

"I'll tell Father what you said. Exactly what you said. He'll get busy on it."

"Nancy. Don't worry. It'll be all right."

"Of course I won't. I'll be seeing you."

"So long, Nancy. Thanks for calling."

I said to Tupper, "Thank you, telephone."

He lifted a hand and stretched out a finger at me, stroking it with the finger of the other hand, making the sign for shame.

"Brad has got a girl," he chanted in a sing-song voice. "Brad has got a girl."

"I thought you never listened in," I said, just a little nettled.

"Brad has got a girl! Brad has got a girl! Brad has got a girl!" He was getting excited about it and the slobber was flying all about his face.

"Cut it out," I yelled at him. "If you don't cut it out, I'll break your God damn neck." He knew I wasn't fooling, so he cut it out.

I woke in a blue and silver night and wondered, even as I woke, what had wakened me. I was lying on my back and above me the sky was glimmering with stars. I was not confused. I knew where I was. There was no blind groping back to an old reality. I heard the faint chuckling of the river as it ran between its banks and I smelled the wood smoke that drifted from the campfire.

Something had awakened me. I lay still, for it seemed important that whatever had wakened me, if it were close at hand, should not know that I was awake. There was a sense of fear, or perhaps of expectation. But if it were a sense of fear, it was neither deep nor sharp.

Slowly I twisted my head a bit and when I did I could see the moon, bright and seeming very near, swimming just above the line of scrubby trees that grew on the river bank.

I was lying flat upon the ground, with nothing under me but the hard-packed earth. Tupper had crawled into his hut to sleep, curling up so his feet did not stick out. And if he were still there and sleeping, he was very quiet about it, for I heard no sound from him.