Orbit 2

Homer Hoose came home that evening to the golden cliché: the un-noble dog who was a personal friend of his; the perfect house where just to live was a happy riot; the loving and unpredictable wife; and the five children — the perfect number (four more would have been too many, four less would have been too few).

The dog howled in terror and bristled up like a hedgehog. Then it got a whiff of Homer and recognized him; it licked his heels and gnawed his knuckles and made him welcome. A good dog, though a fool. Who wants a smart dog!

Homer had a little trouble with the doorknob. They don’t have them in all the recensions, you know; and he had that off-the-track feeling tonight. But he figured it out (you don’t pull it, you turn it), and opened the door.

“Did you remember to bring what I asked you to bring this morning, Homer?” the loving wife Regina inquired.

“What did you ask me to bring this morning, quickheat blueberry biscuit of my heart?” Homer asked.

“If I'd remembered, I’d have phrased it different when I asked if you remembered,” Regina explained. “But I know I told you to bring something, old ketchup of my soul. Homer! Look at me, Homer! You look different tonight! DIFFERENT!! You're not my Homer, are you! Help! Help! There’s a monster in my house!! Help, help! Shriek!”

“It’s always nice to be married to a wife who doesn’t understand you,” Homer said. He enfolded her affectionately, bore her down, trod on her with large friendly hooves, and began (as it seemed) to devour her.

“Where’d you get the monster, mama?” son Robert asked as he came in. “What’s he got your whole head in his mouth for? Can I have one of the apples in the kitchen? What’s he going to do, kill you, mama?”

“Shriek, shriek,” said mama Regina. “Just one apple, Robert, there’s just enough to go around. Yes, I think he’s going to kill me. Shriek!”

Son Robert got an apple and went outdoors.

“Hi, papa, what’s you doing to mama?” Daughter Fregona asked as she came in. She was fourteen, but stupid for her age. “Looks to me like you’re going to kill her that way. I thought they peeled people before they swallowed them. Why! You’re not papa at all, are you? You’re some monster. I thought at first you were my papa. You look just like him except for the way you look.”

“Shriek, shriek,” said mama Regina, but her voice was muffled.

They had a lot of fun at their house.

Homer Hoose came home that evening to the golden cliché: the u.n.d, the p.h.; the l. and u.w.; and the f.c. (four more would have been too many).

The dog waggled all over him happily, and son Robert was chewing an apple core on the front lawn.

“Hi, Robert,” Homer said, “what’s new today?”

“Nothing, papa. Nothing ever happens here. Oh yeah, there’s a monster in the house. He looks kind of like you. He’s killing mama and eating her up.”

“Eating her up, you say, son? How do you mean?”

“He’s got her whole head in his mouth.”

“Droll, Robert, mighty droll,” said Homer, and he went in the house.

One thing about the Hoose children: a lot of times they told the bald-headed truth. There was a monster there. He was killing and eating the wife Regina. This was no mere evening antic. It was something serious.

Homer the man was a powerful and quick-moving fellow. He fell on the monster with judo chops and solid body punches; and the monster let the woman go and confronted the man.

“What’s with it, you silly oaf?” the monster snapped. “If you’ve got a delivery, go to the back door. Come punching people in here, will you? Regina, do you know who this silly simpleton is?”

“Wow, that was a pretty good one, wasn’t it, Homer?” Regina gasped as she came from under, glowing and gulping. “Oh, him? Gee, Homer, I think he’s my husband. But how can he be, if you are? Now the two of you have got me so mixed up that I don’t know which one of you is my Homer.”

“Great goofy Gestalten! You don’t mean I look like him?” howled Homer the monster, near popping.

“My brain reels,” moaned Homer the man. “Reality melts away. Regina! Exorcise this nightmare if you have in some manner called it up! I knew you shouldn’t have been fooling around with that book.”

“Listen, mister reely-brains,” wife Regina began on Homer the man. “You learn to kiss like he does before you tell me which one to exorcise. All I ask is a little affection. And this I didn’t find in a book.”

“How we going to know which one is papa? They look just alike,” daughters Clara-Belle, Anna-Belle, and Maudie-Belle came in like three little chimes.

“Hell-hopping horrors!” roared Homer the man. “How are you going to know—? He’s got green skin.”

“There’s nothing wrong with green skin as long as it’s kept neat and oiled,” Regina defended.

“He’s got tentacles instead of hands,” said Homer the man.

“Oh boy, I’ll say!” Regina sang out.

“How we going to know which one is papa when they look just alike?” the five Hoose children asked in chorus.

“I’m sure there’s a simple explanation to this, old chap,” said Homer the monster. “If I were you, Homer — and there’s some argument whether I am or not — I believe I’d go to a doctor. I don’t believe we both need to go, since our problem’s the same. Here’s the name of a good one,” said Homer the monster, writing it out.

“Oh, I know him,” said Homer the man when he read it. “But how did you know him? He isn’t an animal doctor. Regina, I’m going over to the doctor to see what’s the matter with me, or you. Try to have this nightmare back in whatever corner of your under-id it belongs in when I come back.”

“Ask him if I keep taking my pink medicine,” Regina said.

“No, not him. It’s the head doctor I’m going to.”

“Ask him if I have to keep on dreaming those pleasant dreams,” Regina said. “I sure do get tired of them. I want to get back to the other kind. Homer, leave the coriander seed when you go.” And she took the package out of his pocket. “You did remember to bring it. My other Homer forgot.”

“No. I didn’t,” said Homer the monster. “You couldn’t remember what you told me to get. Here, Regina.”

“I’ll be back in a little while,” said Homer the man. “The doctor lives on the corner. And you, fellow, if you’re real, keep your plankton-picking polypusses off my wife till I get back.”

Homer Hoose went up the street to the house of Dr. Corte on the corner. He knocked on the door, and then opened it and went in without waiting for an answer. The doctor was sitting there, but he seemed a little bit dazed.

“I’ve got a problem, Dr. Corte,” said Homer the man. “I came home this evening, and I found a monster eating my wife — as I thought.”

“Yes, I know,” said Dr. Corte. “Homer, we got to fix that hole on the corner.”

“I didn’t know there was a hole there, doctor. As it happened, the fellow wasn’t really swallowing my wife, it was just his way of showing affection. Everybody thought the monster looked like me, and doctor, it has green skin and tentacles. When I began to think it looked like me too, then I came here to see what was wrong with me, or with everybody else.”

“I can’t help you, Hoose. I’m a psychologist, not a contingent-physicist. Only one thing to do; we got to fix that hole on the comer.”

“Doctor, there’s no hole in the street on this comer.”

“Wasn’t talking about a hole in the street. Homer, I just got back from a visit of my own that shook me up. I went to an analyst who analyzes analysts. I've had a dozen people come to see me with the same sort of story,’ I told him. ‘They all come home in the evening; and everything is different, or themselves are different; or they find that they are already there when they get there. What do you do when a dozen people come in with the same nonsense story, Dr. Diebel?’ I asked him.