Arkady Strugatsky - The Snail on The Slope

"... so that's what happened," Nava was saying, "the deadlings took us along in the night, and they can't see very well at night. Blind as bats, anyone'll tell you that, even that Humpy, though he doesn't belong here, he's from the village that was next to ours, not this one of ours where you and I live now, but ours where I lived with mam, so you can't know Humpy, in his village everything's covered in mushrooms, the spawn fell and that's something not everybody likes, Humpy went away from the village straight away. It's the Accession, he says, and now there's no place for people in the village... So-o-o. There was no moon that night and they probably lost the track, anyway they all bunched together, us in the middle, and it got so hot, you couldn't breathe..."

Kandid looked at her. She was lying on her back, legs crossed, arms folded behind her head. Only her lips moved endlessly, and from time to time her eyes flashed in the half darkness. She went on talking even when the old man came in and seated himself at the table. He drew a pot toward him, sniffed at it noisily and with a slurp set to. At that Kandid got up and with his palms wiped the night sweat from his body. The old man was champing and slobbering, not taking his eyes from the bin with the lid protecting it from mold. Kandid took the pot away and set it next to Nava to stop her talking. The old man sucked his teeth comprehensively.

"Not very tasty," he said, "it's the same everywhere you go these days. And that path's all grown over I used to go along; I used it a lot too, I went to the training there and just bathing, I often went bathing in those days, there was a lake there, now it's just a swamp and it's dangerous but somebody still goes along there otherwise how come there's so many drowned bodies? And reeds. I can ask anybody: how come there's paths through the reeds? And nobody can tell me, and no more they ought. What have you got there in that bin? If it's berries in soak I'll have them, I love soaked berries, but if it's something of yesterday's then it doesn't matter, I won't eat leavings, you can eat your own leavings." He paused, looking from Kandid to Nava and back again. Getting no answer he went on:

"You can't sow anymore where the reeds have grown over. They used to sow there before. They had to for the Accession, and they took everything to Clay Clearing, they still take it there but they don't leave it on the clearing, they bring it back. I told them they shouldn't, but they don't know the meaning of the word. The elder asked me straight out in front of them all: 'Why shouldn't we?' Buster was standing there, look, where you're standing, closer even, and Ears just here, say, and over there where your Nava's lying, there are the Baldy brothers, and he asks me in front of them, in front of everybody. I tell him don't you realize, I tell him, we're not alone here... His father was a very wise man, or maybe he wasn't his father, some say he wasn't and to be sure it doesn't seem like it. 'Why,' he asks me, 'can't I ask why I shouldn't in front of eyeryone?' "

Nava got up and, passing the pot to Kandid, started tidying up. Kandid began to eat. The old man fell silent and watched him for a while chewing on his lip before observing: "That food's not good, you shouldn't eat it."

"Why not?" asked Kandid to tease.

The old man cackled.

"Eh, listen to him! Dummy, you'd do better to keep quiet. You'd be better off answering what I keep asking, does it hurt much when you have your head cut off?"

"What's it to you?" shouted Nava. "Why do you keep prying?"

"Shouts at me," announced the old man. "Lifts up her voice against me. She's borne no child and raises her voice against me. Why don't you have a child? Living with Dummy all this time and no child. Everybody has them but not you. You shouldn't go on like this. Do you know what 'shouldn't' means? It means undesirable, not approved, and since it's not approved it means you shouldn't. What you should do may not be clear but what you shouldn't do, you shouldn't. Everybody should know that and you most of all seeing as how you live in a village not your own, got a house given, got Dummy for a husband. Maybe he's got a different head stuck on him, but he's got a healthy body, you've no right not to have a child. So that's it, shouldn't, not desirable..."

Nava, by now bad tempered and sulky, snatched the bin from the table and went off into the pantry. The old man looked after her then went on, snuffling:

"How else can shouldn't be understood? It can and ought to be realized, shouldn't is harmful..."

Kandid finished his meal and plunked the empty pot in front of the old man. Then he went out onto the street. The house had been heavily overgrown during the night and the only thing visible in the surrounding greenery was the path made by the old man and the place by the door where he had sat fidgeting waiting for them to wake up. The street had already been cleared, the green creeper, thick as a man's arm, which had slid out of the network of boughs hanging above the village on the previous night and put down roots in front of the house next door had already been chopped up and fermenting fluid poured on it. It had turned dark and was going nicely sour. It gave out a strong appetizing smell and the neighbor's boys sat around it and tore out chunks of the soft brown matter, damp and juicy, and stuffed them into their mouths. When Kandid walked past, the eldest shouted with his mouth full, "Dumbling-deadling!" but the cry was not taken up, they were all too busy. Otherwise the street, orange and red from the tall grass in which the houses lay drowned, somber, and mottled with dusky green patches where the sun penetrated the forest roof, lay deserted. From the direction of the field could be heard the monotonous ragged choir of voices: "Hey, hey, make it gay, right way, left way, hey, hey."

From the forest came the echo. Or maybe not an echo. Maybe deadlings.

Hopalong was sitting at home, of course, massaging his leg. "Sit down," was his affable greeting. "Here I've put some soft grass for visitors. They tell me you're going?"

Once more, thought Kandid, once more from the very beginning.

"What's the matter, leg hurting again?" he inquired, seating himself.

"Leg? No, it's just nice sitting here and giving it a rub. When are you off then?"

"Just as we've been fixing it, you and I. If you were to come with me then we could go the day after tomorrow. Now I'll have to find somebody else who knows the forest. I can see you don't want to go."

Hopalong cautiously extended his leg and spoke weightily:

"As soon as you leave me, turn left, and carry on till you get to the field. Across the field, past the two stones and you'll see the road straight away, it's not much overgrown, there's too many boulders on it. Along the road you'll pass through two villages. One's deserted, mushroomy, mushrooms started growing there, so nobody lives there, there's funny folk living in the other village, the blue grass went through there twice and since then they've been sick, no need to start talking to them they won't understand a word, it's like they've lost their memory. Through there then and on the right you have your Clay Clearing. No need for guides, you can get there on your own, no sweat."

"We'll get as far as Clay Clearing," agreed Kandid, "and after that?"

"What do you mean, after that?"

"Across the swamp where the lakes used to be. Remember you were telling me about the stone road?"

"What road? To Clay Clearing. Well I'm trying to tell you, aren't I? Turn left, across the fields up to the two stones..."

Kandid heard him out before speaking.

"Now I know the way to Clay Clearing. We'll get there. But I have to go further, as you know, I must get to the City, and you promised to show me the way."

Hopalong shook his head in sympathy.