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

invited this charlatan?” someone asked of no one in particular.

“I thought science had put an end to all this miraculous event stuff long ago,” said another man, rising from his chair and preparing to leave.

“Well, let’s not pursue this pointless discussion,” the host said. “Our guest apparently knows nothing of science, and is impervious to logic and to the considered opinion of the best minds of our nation. There’s nothing left to do but adjourn.” The meeting began to break up, and the traveler was putting on his coat when the man with the pipe made one last attempt to reason with him.

“We are all scientists here, all educated men. All of us agree that it is impossible for a heavier-than-air device to fly on its own through the air. Don’t you see that? This is against the laws of nature—it violates the law of gravity.”

“Well,” said the traveler, “perhaps there is another law, or perhaps there is a higher law than the law of gravity, which, when it is understood, will explain how planes can fly.”

“That’s just what I’d expect a religious fanatic to say,” said a man who had been listening in. “Science can jump into the trash as far as you religious types are concerned.”

“Not at all,” said the traveler. “But your science is not perfect. You do not yet know everything about everything, what is possible and what is not possible.”

“Go take your religion to a church and keep it away from serious people,” the man concluded, stomping out of the room.

In the weeks that followed, the traveler was ridiculed and denounced in the newspapers, being called everything from a con artist to a prospective mental patient. (The scientific journals said nothing about the man because they considered the whole matter as beneath serious thought.) As a result, the traveler was often left to himself, and so he pulled out his tiny portable television set and began to watch it. Just by chance, some visitors happened to come by and see the little box. They were very impressed and urged the traveler to market his invention for putting a movie inside such a small space.

In a few days, word had spread about this mini-movie and several scientists were convinced (after some debate) to come see it, together with some engineers representing the movie projector manufacturers of the nation.

They were sufficiently impressed as they watched a few scenes, but when the traveler changed channels, their enthusiasm turned to gaping astonishment. The traveler switched all around, showing them twenty channels in all. Such was the amazement and even incredulity of the engineers that they already began to suspect some kind of trick. The scientists looked confused.

“You certainly have a lot of films stored in that little box,” one of the engineers said. “How do you get them all in there?”

“The pictures are not in the box,” said the traveler. “They are all over in the air around us. This antenna brings them in and the set makes them visible.” The engineers laughed while the scientists sneered, the latter now sorry they had allowed themselves to be talked into coming to hear this notorious nut.

“Come now,” one of the scientists said. “Do you expect us to believe that there are pictures floating around us in the air—pictures we cannot see? And that twenty sets of these pictures are all present at once, scrambled together, just waiting for that little box to take them and sort them out? What do you take us for anyway—a bunch of gullible greenhorn fools?”

“And besides,” continued an engineer, “how do these pictures get into the air in the first place? Where do they come from?”

“They’re sent from a satellite in the sky,” the traveler said, as all heads looked up. “You can’t see it, of course. It’s too high. But it’s there.”

“And of course you expect us to believe in something we can’t see,” said one of the scientists, with a touch of scorn.

“Believe it because of its effects—the results—the evidence of its existence,” the traveler said. “If it weren’t there, you would see no pictures.”

“We know you’re lying,” another engineer said. “Even if there were a device in the sky, held up by a balloon or whatever, it couldn’t send a signal down here without a wire. That would be against everything we know about electricity. And I don’t see any wire.”

“Well, it doesn’t use a wire,” said the traveler. “The signals are sent through the air. And the satellite isn’t held up by a balloon; it stays up because it’s high enough so that gravity doesn’t pull it down.”

“Now he’s denying the law of gravity again,” said one of the scientists. “Let’s go. I’ve heard enough. Whatever he does to perform his little trick, he isn’t telling us about it, so let’s just leave.”

“Yeah, let’s get out of here,” another scientist said. “Every time we catch him in an impossibility, he tells us the explanation is in the sky.” Then turning to the traveler to say goodbye, he added, “We cannot believe something when the weight of scientific evidence is against it.”

“But when the physical evidence is clearly before you,” said the traveler, “how can you not believe, even if your theories cannot explain it?”

“Because such an event would be a miracle, and science has nothing to do with miracles.”

“Then perhaps science is the poorer for it,” said the traveler, sitting down to watch his television, which just then happened to be showing a dove flying silently across the sky.

 

A Fish Story

The bright sun and the gentle wind had made the little fish almost bold that summer day, enough so that they were swimming all over the pond, from their home in the reeds at one end to the rocky beach at the other. Or at least they swam very near to the rocky beach—as near as they dared—for all the older fish constantly warned them to stay away. Some of the dangers were clear enough, such as the wading birds who stepped into the shallow water, hoping to pluck out a little fish and swallow him right down, and the foxes, whose gigantic teeth were too awful even to think about. But there were other evils that were not so distinct. Hideous and unimaginable these were, with tales of fish swimming into the area and never to be heard from again, vague reports of sudden disappearances, and some hysterical tales, impossible to make sense of, of leaping shadows, wild splashings, worms flying through the water, and such like.

The dangers of the rocky beach could not quite be isolated in the minds of the little fish, so that they felt a general sense of impending doom whenever they swam more than a few feet from home. That is why, one day when three little fish met each other suddenly among the reeds, they were all momentarily startled. But soon they began talking and relaxed a little. “This is a wonderful pond,” said one. “It’s so big. But I’ve never been this far away from home before.”

“Me either,” said another. “I just hope we’re safe here in these reeds.”

“I do too,” agreed the third. “You never know where an enemy may come from.”

“And you can’t be too careful,” added the first.

“By the way,” said one, “my name is Swimmy Fish. What’s yours?”

“Finny Fish,” said another.

“I’m Chirpy Bird,” said the third.

Swimmy Fish and Finny Fish gave a start, looked at each other with surprise and terror, and then swam off in opposite directions as fast as they could. “Wait!” cried Chirpy Bird. “What’s wrong? Come back!” He looked around anxiously, himself frightened by their fright, though he could see no sign of danger anywhere. But their fear hung over the area, so he decided to swim toward home, at more than his usual speed.

He had not gone very far when he saw several adult fish swimming toward him with serious and half-frightened expressions on their faces. When they saw him, they stopped at a distance. “Stop there,” one of them demanded, so Chirpy Bird stopped. The big fish seemed to be engaged in a solemn discussion. Every once in awhile one of them waved a fin or glanced in his direction. Finally, two of the largest fish approached a little nearer. “Don’t make any sudden moves,” the largest one, whose name was Glubber Fish, said with a mixture of command and pleading.

“I don’t understand,” the little fish said, bewildered.

“Are you Chirpy Bird?” asked Glubber Fish.

“Yes. I—”

“You must leave the pond.” It was a tone of finality.

“But why?” asked Chirpy Bird.

“Because you’ll soon be eating us and our children. Besides, birds don’t live under water.”

“But I’m not a bird,” Chirpy Bird protested.

“What’s your name?” demanded the other, who was called Spotted Fish.

“Chirpy Bird. But—”

“There you are,” he said, with a tone of satisfaction.

“My name is Chirpy Bird,” said the little one, “but I’m a fish.”

“Nonsense,” grumped Spotted Fish. “Whoever heard of a fish named Chirpy Bird?”

“Whether you’ve heard of me or not, here I am,” said Chirpy Bird, not knowing what else to say.

“Totally illogical,” interrupted Whisker Fish, who had just come near.

“As well as disrespectful and impudent,” added Glubber fish.

“You must listen to reason,” said Whisker Fish, self-importantly brushing himself in preparation. “And here it is: You are Chirpy Bird; granted. Birds eat fish; granted. Therefore, you eat fish.”

“But—” Chirpy Bird tried to explain.

“There is no ‘but.’ It’s a syllogism, and cannot be answered. The conclusion follows necessarily,” said Whisker Fish. “It’s pure logic.”

“And it also follows,” said Glubber fish, “that you must leave the pond.”

“I’ll die if I leave the pond,” said Chirpy Bird.

“That’s not our problem,” said Glubber Fish.

“And it’s an irrelevant objection,” added Whisker Fish. The rest of the adult fish had gradually been easing forward during this conversation and now, at the direction of Glubber Fish, the whole group escorted Chirpy Bird down toward the rocky beach. In a few minutes they reached a low spot near a weeping willow, where several of the large fish grabbed Chirpy Bird and threw him onto the shore.

“Now fly away and leave us alone,” one of them said. And leave them alone he did.

 

Man

Somewhere in a deep, tropical jungle lived a tribe of natives with extremely odd behavior. Generations ago the tribe had in some obscure fashion contracted a parasite which induced a seemingly permanent delirium in each native, and which was passed on to subsequent generations. The delirium increased with age, and most of the adult natives showed it by eating dirt, sleeping on dunghills, pummeling anthills with rocks even as the ants bit them severely, and jumping out of trees onto their heads. This last maneuver caused the natives to stagger around senseless for days, or simply to lie unconscious and bleeding in the sun and rain. All these symptoms together prevented the natives from caring for their personal lives, and so they lived in deplorable squalor, with their huts falling apart, and their children and themselves half starved and wholly naked.

Another odd effect of the mental distraction was an unnatural craving for firewood. Unlike the other natives in the area, the members of this tribe collected—and stole, and cheated and betrayed for—log upon stick to pile next to their huts, even though in twenty very cold years they couldn’t use half as much as they already possessed. A few natives had been crushed to death by collapsing woodpiles; many more had died from fighting over decidedly unimpressive old branches.

One day a doctor came from the East to the village, and he immediately recognized the symptoms of the disease (a common one) for which he