Stories From The Old Attic, Robert Harris [top ten books of all time .txt] 📗

father replied, and he went off to place the bets for them.

“Whom did you bet on, daddy?” the daughter asked when he returned.

“I bet on Outside Chance,” he answered.

Soon the race started. The horses bolted from the gate and took off at top speed. Looking Good looked good around the first turn. “Yay, yay, yay!” the girl yelled, jumping up and down as the desire of her heart moved forward. “I’m winning! I’m winning!”

“Patience, my child,” said her father. “In horse racing, unlike in life, we look only at the finish, not at the progress.”

“I sure hope that’s true,” the boy said, “because Sure Win is running fifth.”

“Yes, my son,” replied his father, trying to soften an inevitable blow, “although you know you cannot gamble and be sure at the same time.”

At length the horses came into the final stretch, and, except for King Alphonso, who trailed rather substantially, there were only a few lengths between the leader and the trailing horse. But in that final, all-consuming, frenzied gallop, where mere wish and common effort give way to inner strength and spiritual power, the spaces increased, so that finally the children, with their feelings crushed by the surprise of unexpected failure and by the dismay of dashed hope, watched the horses run across the finish line in this order: 1. Outside Chance; 2. Also Ran; 3. Dotty’s Trotter; 4. Sure Win; 5. High Risk; 6. Looking Good; 7. King Alphonso.

While the girl burst into unrestrained sobbing, the boy, feeling the full difficulty of the conflict between youth and manhood, choked his tears back, and knowing his father to be a philosophical type, tried to see the metaphorical application of this event. “This race is an allegory, isn’t it, Father?” he asked, “where we learn that to succeed we must avoid what appears to be a ‘Sure Win’ and apply ourselves instead to the ‘Outside Chance.’”

“No, my boy,” the man answered. “The lesson is that we should not pay attention to names and appearances, but that we should penetrate beneath the surfaces of things; that we must consider real abilities, evaluate past records, and trust our judgment to bring us to a knowledge of the truth. Appearances and labels are often false and seldom accurately reflect inner realities. We must not let our casual perceptions influence our beliefs or rule our actions. I bet on Outside Chance because he previously has consistently outperformed the other horses in today’s race, or horses that have beat the others. I care not about his name. Read where it says that God does not judge by external appearances, and imitate him.”

“But I still like Looking Good and I wanted him to win,” his daughter said perversely, wiping her tears and stamping her foot. “Outside Chance is a creep.”

“And now, my daughter,” said the man, “you have first felt the conflict between reason and passion. May you learn to resolve it well.”

 

The Oppressed Girl

This may seem like a tall story, but there was once a teenage girl who didn’t get along with her parents. “I’m sick and tired of all these oppressive rules,” she would complain. “I feel just totally controlled. I want to be free!” So she ran away from home. “Now,” she thought, “I can stay up all night and listen to loud music and watch awful movies.”

When she told her friends of her new freedom, they said, “Great! Let’s celebrate and get drunk.”

“Yeah, why not?” she replied. “I can do anything I want.” So she drank and laughed and vomited and passed out on the bathroom floor.

A little while later, she met an older girl who seemed to be experienced in the ways of freedom. “Hey,” said the older girl, “to be free, just take these pills and free your mind from all your cares.” So the teenage girl took the pills and felt strange and didn’t sleep for three days and then closed her eyes and woke up in the middle of the following week.

Another time she met a young man who seemed to know about the free life. “Let me help to liberate you,” he said, putting his arm around her. And so they went to his van and drove to a vacant lot where the young man kissed her and “liberated” her and told her to leave and drove away.

Many days later—days that passed without recognition or remembrance—the girl found herself sitting on a bench waiting for a bus in the middle of the desert. As she sat there gazing at the distant mountains, conscious of little more than the rising heat, she heard herself say, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Whatever you do will be foolish,” said a voice from behind her.

“What?” the girl asked with some surprise, not sure whether she was listening to a person or a hallucination. The voice was that of an old woman with bony hands.

“Good decisions come from good values,” continued the old woman, as she watched her knitting rather than the girl. “You have thrown your values away and so your decisions are poor.”

“But I wanted to be free,” the girl answered.

“There is no freedom without rules,” the woman said. “Without rules there is only slavery.”

“You know nothing about me,” said the girl, her anger rising. “I’m not a slave to anyone. And I can do anything I want to. So just be quiet.”

As she got on the bus to yet one more destination, the girl turned back to the old woman and said, “I’m sorry I got mad. The truth is, I’d do anything to be happy for one hour.”

“That pretty well sums up your entire problem,” the old woman said.

 

Two Conversations on Direction

“And then you turn here to the right.”

“Really? No, I don’t think so. The left path must be the way. It’s more attractive, and it somehow just feels right.”

“I’m sorry, but you have to take the fork to the right. See the little sign pointing the way?”

“Yes, but something just tells me the left fork is the one to take. The ground looks better, and that tree up ahead seems so persuasive.”

“Well, I ought to know the way to my own house. There is only one way, along the right path.”

“Uh uh. The right path looks bad. I just can’t believe it leads to your house. You probably don’t remember correctly.”

“You’ll get lost if you don’t come this way. The other fork dead ends. The only thing there is a swamp, a pit, and a snake.”

“It can’t be. It looks so well traveled. And I have such a feeling that it will take me to your house; I’ve got to try it.”

 

*

 

“Hi. Hop in.”

“Thanks, I appreciate the ride.”

“No problem. Where are you going?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I want to find out. Where are you going?”

“To San Diego.”

“Then where are you going?”

“Back home, why?”

“And then where are you going?”

“Well, oh, I get it. Then I’m going to rise in the firm and become president.”

“And then where will you go?”

“I guess eventually I’ll retire. Say, you feeling all right? You seem a little strange.”

“But after you retire, where will you go?”

“Well, we all die eventually, so I guess I’ll wind up at the cemetery.”

“And then where will you go?”

“I get it. You’re one of those religious fanatics, right? I think you’d better find another ride. You can get out here.”

“Okay, I’m going. But I see you don’t know where you’re going, either.”

“Yes, I do. I’m going to San Diego.”

 

Semiotics Strikes Out

It so happened in heaven one day that two souls who had been friends in their college years on earth met after long lives apart. After a few minutes of joyous reunion and recounting of their lives, one of the souls realized that they were now in a place where all hearts can be revealed, and where they no longer needed to hide anything.

“You want to hear something funny, Lissa?” the soul said. “Back when we were young, I really loved you. Not having you for my wife is the one great regret of my earthly existence. Pretty silly, huh?”

“Not at all,” said Lissa. “I always secretly loved you, too, and hoped against hope that someday you might notice me.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I was too shy. But I sent you hints.”

“Hints?”

“Yes, like the brownies I gave you that rainy day in the student union.”

“Oh, or like the chocolate-chip cookies you gave me that one time?”

“Well, no, those were only cookies. I was just being friendly. But that Christmas when I gave you a coffee mug. That meant I loved you.”

“Oh, I know. That thank-you note you wrote when I fixed your sink you signed, ‘Love ya special.’ That was a hint, huh?”

“Actually, I signed all my cards and notes that way, so I was just thanking you then. But remember that note I wrote where I called you a ‘weird monster man’? Boy, how I loved you then. I wish you’d responded.”

“I thought maybe that meant you didn’t like me. I never was good at hints. I remember thinking a few times that some girl was hinting that she liked me but when I would ask her out or mention romance, she’d always look shocked and be dumbstruck with disbelief that I could ever have thought she’d be interested in me.” And here the soul sighed, as only souls can sigh.

“Well, why didn’t you just say something to me, like, ‘I love you’?” asked Lissa.

“I was afraid. And I didn’t want to risk destroying our friendship by producing unwelcome romantic overtures. And besides, I sent you hints, too.”

“Your overtures, as you call them, wouldn’t have been unwelcome. But what do you mean you sent me hints?”

“I took you out to lunch.”

“But you took lots of girls out to lunch.”

“That was just for companionship or friendship. I just liked them, but I loved you. I thought about you day and night all through college, and for awhile after graduation, too.”

“I wrote you a couple of love letters that I never sent.”

“Gosh, I wish you’d said something.”

“I wish you’d said something, too.”

* As we pass through earthly life so quickly and only once, how sad that our fear of rejection is so often stronger than our love.

 

Seeing is Believing

One day an idle young man was wandering through the woods not far from his town when he happened upon an old woman standing around a rather smoky fire and stirring a kettle. Being the modern young man that he was, he immediately blurted out his first impression:

“Gosh, you’re ugly and whatever you’re cooking stinks,” he told her.

“Well, if you don’t like my looks,” answered the old woman, “I can fix that.” She then spoke a few strange words, which were followed by a dramatic puff of smoke, and the young man discovered, not that the old woman had transformed herself into a beautiful young maiden, but that the young man could no longer see.

“Now I’ve protected you from all ugliness and every unpleasant sight,” said the woman. “And you’ll remain this way until you can find someone to marry you. And it will have to be someone who can look beyond externals better than you, because I’m also changing your looks a bit.” Here the woman gave a little laugh and uttered a few more unintelligible words. Soon there was another puff of smoke.

“Ooh, bummer,” said the young man, feeling of the new bump on his nose and the deep wrinkles now in his cheeks.

When