Clifford Simak - All Flesh Is Grass and Other Stories

"For some people in this village," I told her, "that might be a good idea. Higgy, for example."

She said, sharply, "Don't joke about it, Brad."

"All right," I said. "I won't."

"You're just talking that way to keep from being scared."

"And you," I said, "are talking seriously about it in an effort to reduce it to a commonplace."

She nodded. "But it doesn't help," she said. "It isn't commonplace." She stood up. "Take me home," she said.

So I walked her home.

Twilight was falling when I walked downtown. I don't know why I went there. Restlessness, I guess. The house was too big and empty (emptier than it had ever been before) and the neighbourhood too quiet. There was no noise at all except for the occasional snatch of voices either excited or pontifical, strained through the electronic media. There was not a house in the entire village, I was certain, that did not have a television set or radio turned on.

But when I turned on the TV in the living-room and settled back to watch, it did no more than make me nervous and uneasy.

A commentator, one of the better known ones, was holding forth with a calm and deep assurance.

"…no way of knowing whether this contraption which is circling the skies can really do the job which our Mr Smith from the other world has announced to be its purpose. It has been picked up on a number of occasions by tracking stations which do not seem to be able, for one reason or another, to keep it in their range, and there have been instances, apparently verified, of visual sightings of it. But it is something about which it is difficult to get any solid news."

"Washington, it is understood, is taking the position that the word of an unknown being — unknown by either race or reputation — scarcely can be taken as undisputed fact. The capital tonight seems to be waiting for more word and until something of a solid nature can be deduced, it is unlikely there will be any sort of statement. That is the public position, of course; what is going on behind the scenes may be anybody's guess. And the same situation applies fairly well to all other capitals throughout the entire world.

"But this is not the situation outside the governmental circles. Everywhere the news has touched off wild celebration. There are joyous, spontaneous marches breaking out in London, and in Moscow a shouting, happy mob has packed Red Square. The churches everywhere have been filled since the first news broke, people thronging there to utter prayers of thankfulness.

"In the people there is no doubt and not the slightest hesitation. The man in the street, here in the United States and in Britain and in France — in fact, throughout the world — has accepted this strange announcement at face value. It may be simply a matter of believing what one chooses to believe, or it may be for some other reason, but the fact remains that there has been a bewildering suspension of the disbelief which characterized mass reaction so short a time ago as this morning."

"There seems, in the popular mind, to be no consideration of all the other factors which may be involved. The news of the end of any possibility of nuclear war has drowned out all else. It serves to underline the quiet and terrible, perhaps subconscious, tension under which the world has lived…" I shut off the television and prowled about the house, my footsteps echoing strangely in the darkening rooms.

It was well enough, I thought, for a smug, complacent commentator to sit in the bright-lit studio a thousand miles away and analyse these happenings in a measured and well-modulated manner. And it was well enough, perhaps, for people other than myself even here in Millville, to sit and listen to him. But I couldn't listen — I couldn't stand to listen.

Guilt, I asked myself? And it might be guilt, for I had been the one who'd brought the time machine to Earth and I had been the one who had taken Smith to meet the newsmen at the barrier. I had played the fool — the utter, perfect fool and it seemed to me the entire world must know.

Or might it be the conviction that had been growing since I talked with Nancy that there was some hidden incident or fact — some minor motive or some small point of evidence — that I had failed to see, that we all had failed to grasp, and that if one could only put his finger on this single truth then all that had happened might become simpler of understanding and all that was about to happen might make some sort of sense?

I sought for it, for this hidden factor, for this joker in the deck, for the thing so small it had been overlooked and yet held within it a vast significance, and I did not find it.

I might be wrong, I thought. There might be no saving factor. We might be trapped and doomed and no way to get out.

I left the house and went down the street. There was no place I really wanted to go, but I had to walk, hoping that the freshness of the evening air, the very fact of walking might somehow clear my head.

A half a block away I caught the tapping sound. It appeared to be moving down the street toward me and in a little while I saw a bobbing halo of white that seemed to go with the steady tapping. I stopped and stared at it and it came bobbing closer and the tapping sound went on. And in another moment I saw that it was Mrs Tyler with her snow-white hair and cane.

"Good evening, Mrs Tyler," I said as gently as I could, not to frighten her.

She stopped and twisted around to face me.

"It's Bradshaw, isn't it?" she asked. "I can't see you well, but I recognize your voice."

"Yes, it is," I said. "You're out late, Mrs Tyler."

"I came to see you," she said, "but I missed your house. I am so forgetful that I walked right past it. Then I remembered and I was coming back."

"What can I do for you?" I asked.

"Why, they tell me that you've seen Tupper. Spent some time with him."

"That's true," I said, sweating just a little, afraid of what might be coming next.

She moved a little closer, head tilted back, staring up at me.

"Is it true," she asked, "that he has a good position?"

"Yes," I said, "a very good position."

"He holds the trust of his employers?"

"That is the impression that I gained. I would say he held a post of some importance."

"He spoke of me?" she asked.

"Yes," I lied. "He asked after you. He said he'd meant to write, but he was too busy."

"Poor boy," she said, "he never was a hand to write. He was looking well?"

"Very well, indeed."

"Foreign service, I understand," she said. "Who would ever have thought he'd wind up in foreign service. To tell the truth, I often worried over him. But that was foolish, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was," I said. "He's making out all right."

"Did he say when he would be coming home?"

"Not for a time," I told her. "It seems he's very busy."

"Well, then," she said, quite cheerfully, "I won't be looking for him. I can rest content. I won't be having to go out every hour or so to see if he's come back." She turned away and started down the street.

"Mrs Tyler," I said, "can't I see you home? It's getting dark and…"

"Oh, my, no," she said. "There is no need of it. I won't be afraid. Now that I know Tupper's all right, I'll never be afraid." I stood and watched her go, the white halo of her head bobbing in the darkness, her cane tapping out the way as she moved down the long and twisting path of her world of fantasy.

And it was better that way, I knew, better that she could take harsh reality and twist it into something that was strange and beautiful.

I stood and watched until she turned the corner and the tapping of the cane grew dim, then I turned about and headed downtown.

In the shopping district the street lamps had turned on, but all the stores were dark and this, when one saw it, was a bit upsetting, for most of them stayed open until nine o'clock. But now even the Happy Hollow tavern and the movie house were closed.