Brian Aldiss - The Complete Short Stories - The 1960s

LEE KE MIN Anything or anyone out-of-sight that one senses will never return; an apology offered for illness

LIKI INK TH KUTI The small engine that attends to one after the act of excretion

MAL A feeling of being watched from within

MAN NAIZ TH Being aware of electricity in wires concealed in the walls

MUR ON TIG WON The disagreeable experience of listening to oneself in the middle of a long speech and neither understanding what one is saying nor enjoying the manner in which it is being said; a foreign accent; a lion breaking wind after the evening repast

NAM ON A The remembrance, in bed, of camp fires

NO LEE LE MUN The love of a wife that becomes especially vivid when she is almost out-of-sight

NU CROW Dying before strangers

NU DI DIMU Dying in a low place, often of a low fever

NU HIN DER VLAK The invisible stars; forms of death

NUN MUM Dying before either of one’s parents; ceasing to fight just because one’s enemy is winning

NUT LAP ME Dying of laughing

NUT LA POM Dying laughing

NUT VATO Managing to die standing up

NUTVU BAG RACK TO be born dead

NU VALK Dying deliberately in a lonely (high) place

OBI DAKT An obstruction; three or more machines talking together

ORAN MUDA A change of government; an old peasant saying meaning, ‘The dirt in the river is different every day’

PAN WOL LE MUDA A certainty that tomorrow will much resemble today; a line of manufacturing machines

PAT O BANE BAN The ten heartbeats preceding the first heartbeat of orgasm

PI KI SKAB WE The parasite that afflicts man and Tig Gag in its various larval stages and, while burrowing in the brain of the Tig Gag, causes it to speak like a man

PI SHAK RACK CHANO The retrogressive dreams of autumn attributed to the presence in the bloodstream of Pi Ki Skab We

PIT HOR Pig’s cheeks, or the droppings of pigs; the act of name-

dropping

PLAY The heightening of consciousness that arises when one awakens in a strange room that one cannot momentarily identify

SHAK ALE MAN The struggle that takes place in the night between the urge to urinate and the urge to continue sleeping

SHAK LA MAN GRA When the urge to urinate takes precedence over the urge to continue sleeping

SHAK LO MUN GRAM When the urge to continue sleeping takes

precedence over all things

SHEAN DORL Gazing at one’s reflection for reasons other than vanity

SHE EAN MIK Performing prohibited postures before a mirror

SHEM A slight cold afflicting only one nostril; the thoughts that pass when one shakes hands with a politician

SHUK TACK The shortening in life-stature a man incurs from a

seemingly benevolent machine

SOBI A reverie lasting less than twenty years on cosmological themes; a nickel

SODI DORL One machine making way for another; decadence,

particularly in the Cold Continents

SODI IN PIT Any epithet which does not accurately convey what it

intends, such as ‘Sober as a judge’, ‘Silly nit’, ‘He swims like a fish’, ‘He’s only half-alive’, and so on

STAINI RACK NUSVIODON Experiencing Staini Rack Nuul and then realising that one must continue in the same outworn fashion because the alternatives are too frightening, or because one is too weak to change; wearing a suit of clothes at which one sees strangers looking askance

STAINI RACK NUUL Introspection (sometimes prompted by birthdays) that one is not living as one determined to live when one was very young; or, on the other hand, realising that one is living in a mode decided upon when one was very young and which is now no longer applicable or appropriate

STAIN TOK I The awareness that one is helplessly living a role

STA SODON The worst feelings which do not even lead to suicide

SU SODA VALKUS A sudden realisation that one’s spirit is not pure, overcoming one on Mount Rinvlak (in the Southern Continent)

TI Civilised aggression

TIG GAG The creature most like man in the Southern Continent which smiles as it sleeps

TIPY LAP KIN Laughter that one recognises though the laughter is

unseen; one’s own laughter in a crisis

TOK AN Suddenly divining the nature and imminence of old age in one’s thirty-first year

TUAN BOLO A class of people one only meets at weddings; the pleasure of feeling rather pale

TU KI TOK Moments of genuine joy captured in a play or charade about joy; the experience of youthful delight in old age

TUZ PAT MAIN (Obs.) The determination to eat one’s maternal

grandfather

U (Obs.) The amount of time it takes for a lizard to turn into a bird; love

UBI A girl who lifts her skirts at the very moment you wish she would

UDI KAL The clothes of the woman one loves

UDI UKAL The body of the woman one loves

UES WE TEL DA Love between a male and female politician

UGI SLO GU The love that needs a little coaxing

UMI RIN TOSIT The sensations a woman experiences when she does not know how she feels about a man

UMY RIN RU The new dimensions that take on illusory existence when the body of the loved woman is first revealed

UNIMGAG BU Love of oneself that passes understanding; a machine’s dream

UNK TAK An out-of-date guide book; the skin shed by the snake that predicts rain

UPANG PLA Consciousness that one’s agonised actions undertaken for love would look rather funny to one’s friends

UPANG PLAP Consciousness that while one’s agonised actions undertaken for love are on the whole rather funny to oneself, they might even look heroic to one’s friends; a play with a cast of three or less

U RI RHI Two lovers drunk together

USANA NUTO A novel all about love, written by a computer

USAN I NUT Dying for love

USAN I ZUN BI Living for love; a tropical hurricane arriving from over the sea, generally at dawn

UZ Two very large people marrying after the prime of life

UZ TO KARDIN The realisation in childhood that one is the issue of two very large people who married after the prime of life

WE FAAK A park or a college closed for seemingly good reasons; a city where one wishes one could live

YA GAG Too much education; a digestive upset during travel

YA GAG LEE Apologies offered by a hostess for a bad meal

YA GA TUZ Bad meat; (Obs.) dirty fingernails

YAG ORN A president

YATUZ PATI (Obs.) The ceremony of eating one’s maternal grandfather

YATUZ SHAK SHAK NAPANG HOLI NUN Lying with one’s maternal grandmother; when hens devour their young

YE FLIC TOT A group of men smiling and congratulating each other

YE FLU GAN Philosophical thoughts that don’t amount to much;

graffiti in a place of worship

YON TORN A paper tiger; two children with one toy

YON U SAN The hesitation a boy experiences before first kissing his first girl

YOR KIN BE A house; a circumlocution; a waterproof hat; the smile of a slightly imperfect wife

YUP PA A book in which everything is understandable except the author’s purpose in writing it

YUPPA GA Stomach ache masquerading as eyestrain; a book in which nothing is understandable except the author’s purpose in writing it

YUTH MOD The assumed bonhomie of visitors and strangers

ZO ZO CON A woman in another field

The Dead Immortal 5 The Dead Immortal 6 Down the Up Escalation 7 Full Sun 8 Just Passing Through 9 Multi-Value Motorway 10 The Night that All Time Broke Out 11 Randy’s Syndrome 12 Still Trajectories 13 Two Modern Myths (Reflection on Mars and Ultimate Construction) 14 Wonder Weapon 15 …And the Stagnation of the Heart 16 Drake-Man Route 17 Dreamer, Schemer 18 Dream of Distance 19 Send her Victorious 20 The Serpent of Kundalini 21 The Tell-Tale Heart-Machine 22 Total Environment 23 The Village Swindler 24 When I Was Very Jung 25 The Worm that Flies 26 The Firmament Theorem 27 Greeks Bringing Knee-High Gifts 28 The Humming Heads 29 The Moment of Eclipse 30 Ouspenski’s Astrabahn 31 Since the Assassination 32 So Far From Prague 33 The Soft Predicament 34 Supertoys Last All Summer Long 35 That Uncomfortable Pause Between Life and Art… 36 Working in the Spaceship Yards About the Author Also by Brian Aldiss About the Publisher