Clifford Simak - The Thing in the Stone - And Other Stories

At his own desk, he selected three sheets of paper and rolled them into the typewriter.

The machine started to type. All by itself without him touching it! He sat stupefied and watched its keys go up and down.

It typed:

Keep out of this, Joe. Don’t mix into this. You might get hurt.

Joe Crane pulled the sheets of copy paper out of the machine. He balled them in his fist and threw them into a wastebasket. Then he went out to get a cup of coffee.

“You know, Louie,” he said to the man behind the counter, “a man lives alone too long and he gets to seeing things.”

“Yeah,” said Louie. “Me, I’d go nuts in that place of yours. Rattling around in it empty-like. Should have sold it when your old lady passed on.”

“Couldn’t,” said Crane. “It’s been my home too long.”

“Ought to get married off, then,” said Louie. “Ain’t good to live by yourself.”

“Too late now,” Crane told him. “There isn’t anyone who would put up with me.”

“I got a bottle hid out,” said Louie. “Couldn’t give you none across the counter, but I could put some in your coffee.”

Crane shook his head. “Got a hard day coming up.”

“You sure? I won’t charge you for it. Just old friends.”

“No. Thank you, Louie.”

“You been seeing things?” asked Louie in a questioning voice.

“Seeing things?”

“Yeah. You said a man lives too much alone and he gets to seeing things?”

“Just a figure of speech,” said Crane.

He finished the cup of coffee quickly and went back to the office.

The place looked more familiar now.

Ed Lane was there, cussing out a copy boy. Frank McKay was clipping the opposition morning sheet. A couple of other reporters had drifted in.

Crane took a quick look at the supply cabinet door and it still was shut.

The phone on McKay’s desk buzzed and the city editor picked it up. He listened for a moment, then took it down from his ear and held his hand over the mouthpiece.

“Joe,” he said, “take this. Some screwball claims he met a sewing machine coming down the street.”

Crane reached for his phone.

“Give me the call on 246,” he told the operator.

A voice was saying in his ear, “This the Herald? This the Herald? Hello, there …”

“This is Crane,” said Joe.

“I want the Herald,” said the man. “I want to tell ’em …”

“This is Crane, of the Herald,” Crane told him. “What’s on your mind?”

“You a reporter?”

“Yeah, I’m a reporter.”

“Then listen close. I’ll try to tell this slow and easy and just the way it happened. I was walking down the street, see …”

“What street?” asked Crane. “And what is your name?”

“East Lake,” said the caller. “The five or six hundred block, I don’t remember which. And I met this sewing machine rolling along the street and I thought, thinking the way you would, you know, if you met a sewing machine … I thought somebody had been rolling it along and it had gotten away from them. Although that is funny, because the street is level. There’s no grade to it at all, you see. Sure, you know the place. Level as the palm of your hand. And there wasn’t a soul in sight. It was early morning, see …”

“What’s your name?” asked Crane.

“My name? Smith, that’s my name. Jeff Smith. And so I figured maybe I’d ought to help this guy the sewing machine had gotten away from, so I put out my hand to stop it and it dodged. It…”

“It did what?” yelped Crane.

“It dodged. So help me, mister. When I put my hand out to stop it, it dodged out of the way so I couldn’t catch it. As if it knew I was trying to catch it, see, and it didn’t want to be caught. So it dodged out of the way and went around me and down the street as fast as it could go, picking up speed as it went. And when it got to the corner, it turned the corner as slick as you please and …”

“What’s your address?” asked Crane.

“My address? Say, what do you want my address for? I was telling you about this sewing machine. I called you up to give you a story and you keep interrupting …”

“I got to have your address,” Crane told him, “if I’m going to write the story.”

“Oh, all right then, if that is the way it is. I live at 203 North Hampton and I work at Axel Machines. Run a lathe, you know. And I haven’t had a drink in weeks. I’m cold sober now.”

“All right,” said Crane. “Go ahead and tell me.”

“Well, there isn’t much else to tell. Only when this machine went past me I had the funny feeling that it was watching me. Out of the corner of its eyes, kind of. And how is a sewing machine going to watch you? A sewing machine hasn’t got any eyes and …”

“What made you think it was watching you?”

“I don’t know, mister. Just a feeling. Like my skin was trying to roll up my back.”

“Mr. Smith,” asked Crane, “have you ever seen a thing like this before? Say, a washing machine or something else.”

“I ain’t drunk,” said Smith. “Haven’t had a drop in weeks. I never saw nothing like this before. But I’m telling you the truth, mister. I got a good reputation. You can call up anyone and ask them. Call Johnny Jacobson up at the Red Rooster grocery. He knows me. He can tell you about me. He can tell you …”

“Sure, sure,” said Crane, pacifying him. “Thanks for calling, Mr. Smith.”

You and a guy named Smith, he told himself. Both of you are nuts. You saw a metal rat and your typewriter talked back at you and now this guy meets a sewing machine strolling down the street.

Dorothy Graham, the managing editor’s secretary, went past his desk, walking rapidly, her high heels coming down with decisive clicks. Her face was flushed an angry pink and she was jingling a ring of keys in her hands.

“What the matter, Dorothy?” Crane asked.

“It’s that damn door again,” she said. “The one to the supply cabinet. I just know I left it open and now some goof comes along and closes it and the lock snaps.”

“Keys won’t open it?” asked Crane.

“Nothing will open it,” she snapped. “Now I got to get George up here again. He knows how to do it. Talks to it or something. It makes me so mad, Boss called me up last night and said for me to be down early and get the tape recorder for Albertson. He’s going out on that murder trial up north and wants to get some of the stuff down on tape. So I get up early and what does it get me. I lose my sleep and don’t even stop for breakfast and now…”

“Get an axe,” said Crane. “That will open it.”

“The worst of it,” said Dorothy, “is that George never gets the lead out. He always says he’ll be right up and then I wait and wait and I call again and he says…”

“Crane!” McKay’s roar echoed through the room.

“Yeah,” said Crane.

“Anything to that sewing machine story?”

“Guy says he met one.”

“Anything to it?”

“How the hell would I know? I got the guy’s word, that’s all.”

“Well, call up some other people in that neighborhood. Ask them if they saw a sewing machine running around loose. Might be good for a humorous piece.”

“Sure,” said Crane.

He could imagine it:

“This is Crane at the Herald. Got a report there’s a sewing machine running around loose down in your neighborhood. Wondering if you saw anything of it. Yes, lady, that’s what I said … a sewing machine running around. No, ma’m, no one pushing it. Just running around …”

He slouched out of his chair, went over to the reference table, picked up the city directory and lugged it back to the desk.