Greener Than You Think, Ward Moore [ebook reader computer txt] 📗

"Wouldnt I?" she retorted incomprehensibly and went below to her cabin-laboratory.

The Grass is reported in Essex and Hertfordshire. I understand there are at least two other ships equipped for research and manned by English scientists. It would serve F right if they perfected a counteragent first.

October 26: Have ordered our accompanying ships to lie offshore, lest they be boarded by fearcrazed refugees, for the Grass is now in the vicinity of London and England is in a horrible state.

October 27: BBC transmitting from Penzance. Faint.

101. November 3: On board the Sisyphus off Scilly. The last days of England have passed. Heightening the horror, the BBC in its final moments forwent its policy of soothing its listeners and urging calmness upon them. Instead, it organized an amazing news service, using thousands of pigeons carrying messages from eyewitnesses to the station at Penzance to give a minutebyminute account of the end. Dispassionately and detachedly, as though this were some ordinary disaster, announcer after announcer went on the air and read reports; heartpiercing, anticlimactic, tragic, trivial, noble and thoroughly English reports....

The people vented their futile rage and terror in mass pyromania. Building after building, city after city was burned to the ground. But, according to the BBC, the murderous frenzy of the Continent was not duplicated. Inanimate things suffered; priceless art objects were kicked around in the streets, but houses were carefully emptied of inhabitants before being put to the torch.[356]

These were the spectacular happenings; the emphatic events. Behind them, and in the majority, were quieter, duller transactions. Churches and chapels filled with people sitting quiet in pews, meditating; gatherings in the country, where the participants looked at the sun, earth and sky; vast meetings in Hyde Park proclaiming the indissoluble brotherhood of man, even in the face of extinction.

We heard the Queen and her consort remained in Buckingham Palace to the last, but this may be only romantic rumor. At all events, England is gone now, after weathering a millennium of unsuccessful invasions. From where I sit peacefully, bringing my history uptodate and jotting these notes in my diary, I can see, faintly with the naked eye or quite distinctly through a telescope, that emerald gem set in a silver sea. The great cities are covered; the barren moors, the lovely lakes, the gentle streams, the forbidding crags are all mantled in one grassy sward. England is gone, and with it the world. What few men of forethought who have taken to ships, what odd survivors there may be in arctic wastes or on lofty Andean or Himalayan peaks, together with the complement of the Sisyphus and its accompanying escort are all that survive of humanity. It is an awesome thought.

Later: Reading this over it seems almost as though I had been untrue to my fundamental philosophy. The world has gone, vanished; but perhaps it is for the best, afterall. We shall start again in a few days with a clean slate, picking up from where we left off—for we have books and tools and men of learning and intelligence—to start a new and better world the moment the Grass retreats. I am heartened by the thought.

Below, Miss Francis and her coworkers are striving for the solution. After the last experiment there can be no question as to the outcome. An hour ago I would have written that it was deplorable this outcome couldnt be achieved before the latest victory of the Grass. Now I begin to believe it may be a lucky delay.

November 4: What meaning have dates now? We shall have to have a new calendar—Before the Grass and After the Grass.[357]

November 5: Moved by some incomprehensible morbidity I had a stainless steel chest, complete with floats, made before embarkation in order to place the manuscript and diary in it should the impossible happen. I have it now on the deck beside me as a reminder never to give way to a weak despair. F promises me it is a matter of days if not hours till we can return to our native element.

November 8: Another test. Almost completely successful. F certain the next one will do it. My emotions are exhausted.

November 9: I have completed my history of the Grass down to the commencement of this diary. I shall take a wellearned rest from my literary labors for a few days. F announces a new test—"the final one, Weener, the final one"—for tomorrow.

November 10: Experiment with the now perfected compound has been put off one more day. F is completely calm and confident of the outcome. She is below now, making lastminute preparations. For the first time she has infected me with her certitude—although I never doubted ultimate success—and I feel tomorrow will actually see the beginning of the end for the Grass which started so long ago on Mrs Dinkman's lawn. How far I and the world have come since then!

Would I go back to that day if I had the power? It seems an absurd question, but there is no doubt we who have survived have gained spiritual stature. Of course I do not mean anything mystical or supernatural by this observation—we have acquired heightened sensitivity and new perceptions. Brother Paul, ridiculous mountebank, was yet correct in this—the Grass chastised us rightly. Whatever sins mankind committed have been wiped out and expiated.

Later: We are out of sight of land; nothing but sea and sky, no green anywhere. On the eve of liberation all sorts of absurd and irrelevant thoughts jump about in my mind. The strange lady ... Joe's symphony, burned by his mother. Whatever happened to William Rufus Le ffaçasé after he eschewed his profession for superstition? And Mrs Dinkman? For some annoying reason I am beset with the thought of Mrs Dinkman.

I can see her pincenez illadjusted on her nose. I can hear[358] her highpitched complaining voice bargaining with me over the cost of inoculating her lawn. The ugly stuff of her tasteless dress is before my eyes. It is so real to me I swear I can see the poor, irregular lines of the weaving.

Still later: I have sat here in a dull lethargy, undoubtedly induced by my overwrought state, quite understandable in the light of what is to happen in a few hours, my eyes on the seams of the deck, reviewing all the things I have written in my book, preparing myself, a way, for the glorious and triumphant finish. But I am beset by delusions. A moment ago it was the figure of Mrs Dinkman and now—

And now, by all the horror that has overcome mankind, it is a waving, creeping, insatiable runner of the Grass.

Again: I have made no attempt to pinch off the green stolon. It must be three inches long by now and the slim end is waving in the wind, seeking for a suitable spot to assure its hold doubly. I touched it with my hand, but I could not bring myself to harm it.

I managed to drag my eyes away from the plant and go below to see Miss Francis. I stood outside the cabin for a long time, listening to the noise and laughter, coupled with a note of triumph I had never heard before and which I'm sure indicates indubitable success. There can be no question of that.

There can be no question of that.

The stolon has pressed itself into another seam.

The blades are very green. They have opened themselves to the sun and are sucking strength for the new shoots. I have put my manuscript into the casket which floats, leaving it open for this diary if it should be necessary. But of course such a contingency is absurd.

Absolutely absurd.

The Grass has found another seam in the deck.