Daniel Keyes: Flowers for Algernon

progris riport 1 martch 3
Dr Strauss says I shoud rite down what I think and remembir and evrey thing that happins to me from now on. I dont no why but he says its importint so they will see if they can use me. I hope they use me becaus Miss Kinnian says mabye they can make me smart. I want to be smart. My name is Charlie Gordon I werk in Dormers bakery where Mr Donner gives me 11 dollers a week and bred or cake if I want. I am 32 yeres old and next munth is my brithday. I tolld dr Strauss and perfesser Nemur I cant rite good but he says it dont matter he says I shud rite just like I talk and like I rite compushishens in Miss Kin-nians class at the beekmin collidge center for retarted adults where I go to lern 3 times a week on my time off. Dr. Strauss says to rite a lot evrything I think and evrything that happins to me but I cant think anymor because I have nothing to rite so I will close for today... yrs truly Charlie Gordon.

progris riport 2 martch 4
I had a test today. I think I faled it and I think mabye now they wont use me. What happind is I went to Prof Nemurs office on my lunch time like they said and his secertery took me to a place that said psych dept on the door with a long hall and alot of littel rooms with onley a desk and chares. And a nice man was in one of the rooms and he had some wite cards with ink spilld all over them. He sed sit down Charlie and make yourself cunfortible and rilax. He had a wite coat like a docter but I dont think. he was no docter because he dint tell me to opin my 1 mouth and say ah. All he had was those wite cards. His name is Burt. I fergot his
last name because I dont remembir so good.

Salomé Guadalupe Ingelmo: Contagio / Infection

Luz en casa de los Gómez. Algo pasa. En el barrio los vecinos, para ahorrar, siempre avanzan a tientas entre tinieblas, iluminados únicamente por la TV.

–Al regresar de la cantera se sentó ante la pantalla. Y ahí sigue. Ni su ración de mortadela diaria ha probado –explica la anciana mirando al galeno a través de la vaporosa loncha intacta.

El anciano se diría catatónico.

–Le ha dado un chungo. El diagnóstico parecerá poco científico, pero me ahorra complejas aclaraciones que usted, marginada social por su nacimiento en el seno de la clase media, privada del privilegio de los estudios superiores, no entendería.

–¿Costará mucho el tratamiento? –la mujer se dirige resignada al cajón que custodia el poco dinero escapado al colapso de los bancos. Sabe que para ellos vivir siempre tiene un precio.

–Un riñón. Literalmente; en estos días los hospitales andan escasos de órganos.

Ajeno a su destino, el anciano sueña un paraíso donde aún hay jubilación, sanidad y educación públicas; donde se desconocen las cartillas de racionamiento… De repente el calvo de la lotería, no trajeado sino medio desnudo, convertido en chamán amazónico engalanado con vistosas plumas de ave, sale de la pantalla del televisor. “No existe la suerte: el mundo está en tus manos”, asegura. Entonces, cumpliendo un liberador ritual de iniciación, le sopla el polvo mágico a la cara. El insólito antídoto escuece. Pero también le abre los ojos, despertándole de su habitual letargo.

Reginald Bretnor: Cat

I had no premonition of disaster when Smithby married Cynthia Carmichael and took her off on his sabbatical. No inner voice whispered its awful warning in my ear when it was rumored that he was spending his year of leave in research of a strangely private nature. Even as his department head, how could I know that he was bringing Cat into the world?

His year drew to a close, my own sabbatical began, and off I went -- intending, after three therapeutic months in sunny Italy, to seek the scholarly seclusion of Scotland's National Library for the remainder of my time. But it was not to be. Scarcely a week after I arrived in Edinburgh, the letter came.

Did I say "letter"? There was no letter in the grimy envelope which had followed my wandering path from Naples north. It contained only a brief note and an enormous clipping from some cheap green newspaper.

I glanced at the curt message:

Dear Christopher,

Smithby has betrayed our tradition and our trust. Your entire department is in turmoil. Three of us have already tendered our resignations.

Witherspoon

For one dreadful moment, I closed my eyes; and Smithby's face, a pallid mask of modest erudition, appeared before me. Then, with trembling fingers, I opened up the clipping:

WIFE'S LOVE PROMPTS SCIENCE TRIUMPH!

Young Bogwood Prof Wins Plaudits

For First Cat Language Studies!

Ana María Shua: 100

Mientras Aladino duerme, su mujer frota dulcemente su lámpara maravillosa. En esas condiciones, ¿qué genio podría resistirse?

Harlan Ellison - Robert Silverberg: The Song The Zombie Sang

From the fourth balcony of the Los Angeles Music Center the stage was little more than a brilliant blur of constantly changing chromatics—stabs of bright green, looping whorls of crimson. But Rhoda preferred to sit up there. She had no use for the Golden Horseshoe seats, buoyed on their grab-grav plates, bobbling loosely just beyond the fluted lip of the stage. Down there the sound flew off, flew up and away, carried by the remarkable acoustics of the Center's Takamuri dome. The colors were important, but it was the sound that really mattered, the patterns of resonance bursting from the hundred quivering outputs of the ultracembalo.

And if you sat below, you had the vibrations of the people down there—

She was hardly naive enough to think that the poverty that sent students up to the top was more ennobling than the wealth that permitted access to a Horseshoe; yet even though she had never actually sat through an entire concert down there, she could not deny that music heard from the fourth balcony was purer, more affecting, lasted longer in the memory. Perhaps it was the vibrations of the rich.

Arms folded on the railing of the balcony, she stared down at the rippling play of colors that washed the sprawling proscenium. Dimly she was aware that the man at her side was saying something. Somehow responding didn't seem important. Finally he nudged her, and she turned to him. A faint, mechanical smile crossed her face. «What is it, Laddy?»

Jaime Valdivieso: Lengua de víbora

No tuvo que apretar el gatillo: bastó que lo forzara a morderse la lengua.

Camilo José Cela: Certificado de residencia

El hombre bajó trabajosamente del automóvil. Entre su pierna derecha escayolada desde el tobillo a la ingle, el embarazo de las muletas y el peso de una cartera de mano colgándole del cuello, no le resultaba fácil moverse. El chofer del taxi, solícito, le ayudó. La compasión es uno de los últimos reductos que les quedan a las buenas formas.

Renqueante, con una impericia que quedaba confirmada por la blancura del yeso recién puesto, el hombre llegó hasta el mostrador de facturación. Sujetando ambas muletas con una sola mano, ayudándose con los dientes y manteniendo un equilibrio precario, logró sacar su billete de la cartera. Se lo extendió a la azafata.

-A Málaga, señorita. No llevo equipaje.

La azafata ni siquiera levantó la mirada de la pantalla de su computadora. Le preguntó, en el tono más automático existente.

-¿Asiento de fumador o de no fumador?

-Me da lo mismo. Preferiría, si pudiera ser, uno de los de la ventanilla de emergencia.

La sonrisa le salió adecuadamente dolorosa.

-Es que llevo la pierna enyesada, ¿sabe?, y en esa fila hay más sitio.

Patricia Highsmith: Old folks at home

'Well,' Lois said finally, 'let's do it.' Her expression as she looked at her husband was serious, a little worried, but she spoke with conviction. 'Okay,' said Herbert, tensely.

They were going to adopt an elderly couple to live with them. More than elderly, old probably. It was not a hasty decision on the part of the Mclntyres. They had been thinking about it for several weeks. They had no children themselves, and didn't want any. Herbert was a strategy analyst at a government-sponsored institution called Bayswater, some four miles from where they lived, and Lois was an historian, specializing in European history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Thirty-three years old now, she had three books and a score of articles to her credit. She and Herbert could afford a pleasant two-story house in Connecticut with a glass-enclosed sunroom that was Herbert's workroom and also their main library, handsome grounds and a part-time gardener all year round to look after their lawn and trees, bushes and flowers. They knew people in the neighborhood, friends and acquaintances, who had children-young children and teenagers-and the Mclntyres felt a little guilty about not fulfilling their duty in this department; and besides that, they had seen an old people's nursing home at first hand a few months ago, when Eustace Vickers, a retired inventor attached to Bayswater, had passed away. The Mclntyres, along with a few of Herbert's colleagues, had paid a visit every few days to Eustace, who had been popular and active until his stroke.

One of the nurses at the home had told Lois and Herbert that lots of families in the region took in old people for a week at a time, especially in winter or at the Christmas season, to give them a change, 'a taste of family life for a few days,' and they came back much cheered and improved. 'Some people are kind enough to adopt an old person-even a couple-to live with them in their homes,' the nurse had said.

Jairo Aníbal Niño: Cuento de arena

Un día la ciudad desapareció. De cara al desierto y con los pies hundidos en la arena, todos comprendieron que durante treinta largos años habían estado viviendo en un espejismo

Alpheus Hyatt Verrill: The Flying Head

It was indeed strange, Dr Stokes thought, that his Indian labourers should appear so loath to dig into the mound. They worked half-heartedly, hung back, and appeared nervous and ill at ease. Dr Stokes had excavated hundreds of burial mounds in Peru and had disinterred countless Inca and pre-Inca mummies; yet never before had the Cholos showed the least hesitation in digging into graves of their forefathers and dragging out their dessicated bodies.

When the archaeologist questioned them they merely muttered and mumbled in their native Quichua, saying something unintelligible about supay, or devil; and when at last the posts and adobe bricks marking a grave were exposed, the men demanded their pay and deserted in a body.

'Looks as if we'd have to do the rest of the work ourselves, Tom,' Dr Stokes said to his assistant.

Presently the last of the bricks were removed, and the scientist uttered an exclamation of delight as he saw the contents of the tomb. The mummy-bundle itself was magnificent with silver and gold ornaments, and grouped about it were splendid specimens of pottery.

'By Jove!' he cried as he examined one of the jars. 'An entirely new motif! See here, Tom!'

Pío Baroja: Olaberri el macabro

Olaberri era un pesimista jovial. No encontraba en el mundo más que vanidad y aflicción de espíritu. No tenía fe más que en la cal hidráulica y en el cemento armado. Para él, detrás de toda satisfacción venía algo negro y doloroso, que eran principalmente las facturas.

-¿Ve usted esa chica que se ha casado con el carabinero? -me preguntó hace tiempo con aire de profunda conmiseración.

-Sí.

-¡Qué infelices! Ahora mucha alegría, ¿eh?, y de viaje, pero luego ya vendrán las facturas.

A Olaberri le preocupaban las facturas. Para Olaberri, que era contratista en pequeño, las facturas eran como la sombra de Banquo, que aparece en el banquete de la vida.

Michael Marshall Smith: The man who drew cats

Old Tom was a very tall man. He was so tall he didn’t even have a nickname for it. Ned Black, who was at least a head shorter, had been ‘Tower Block’ since the sixth grade, and Jack, the owner of the Hog’s Head Bar, had a sign up over the door saying ‘Mind Your Head, Ned’. But Tom was just Tom. It was like he was so tall it didn’t bear mentioning even for a joke: be a bit like ragging someone for breathing.

Course there were other reasons too for not ragging Tom about his height or anything else. The guys you’ll find perched on stools round Jack’s bar watching the ball game and buying beers, they’ve known each other for ever. Gone to Miss Stadler’s school together, got under each other’s Mom’s feet, and double-dated together right up to giving each other’s best man’s speech. Kingstown is a small place, you understand, and the old boys who come regular to Jack’s mostly spent their childhoods in the same tree-house. Course they’d gone their separate ways, up to a point: Pete was an accountant now, had a small office down Union Street just off the square and did pretty good, whereas Ned, well he was still pumping gas and changing oil and after forty years he did that pretty good too. Comes a time when men have known each other so long they forget what they do for a living most of the time because it just don’t matter: when you talk there’s a little bit of skimming stones down the quarry in second grade, a bit of dolling up to go to that first dance, and going to the housewarming when they moved ten years back. There’s all that and more than you can say so none of it’s important ’cept for having happened.

So we’ll stop by and have a couple of beers and talk about the town and the playoffs and rag each other and the pleasure’s just in shooting the breeze and it don’t really matter what’s said, just the fact that we’re all still there to say it.

Isabel Allende: El hombre de plata

El Juancho y su perra «Mariposa» hacían el camino de tres kilómetros a la escuela dos veces al día. Lloviera o nevara, hiciera frío o sol radiante, la pequeña figura de Juancho se recortaba en el camino con la «Mariposa» detrás. Juancho le había puesto ese nombre porque tenía unas grandes orejas voladoras que, miradas a contra luz, la hacían parecer una enorme y torpe mariposa morena. Y también por esa manía que tenía la perra de andar oliendo las flores como un insecto cualquiera.

La «Mariposa» acompañaba a su amo a la escuela, y se sentaba a esperar en la puerta hasta que sonara la campana. Cuando terminaba la clase y se abría la puerta, aparecía un tropel de niños desbandados como ganado despavorido, y la «Mariposa» se sacudía la modorra y comenzaba a buscar a su niño. Oliendo zapatos y piernas de escolares, daba al fin con su Juancho y entonces, moviendo la cola como un ventilador a retropropulsión, emprendía el camino de regreso.

Los días de invierno anochece muy temprano. Cuando hay nubes en la costa y el mar se pone negro, a las cinco de la tarde ya está casi oscuro. Ese era un día así: nublado, medio gris y medio frío, con la lluvia anunciándose y olas con espuma en la cresta.

David J. Schow: Blossom

«Each of us has a moment,» Quinn told her. «The moment when we shine; that instant when we are at our absolute best. Just as each of us has an aberration, a hidden secret. Some might call it a perversion, though that's rather a rough word. Crude. Nonspecific. Is it a perversion to do that thing you're best at, to enjoy your individual moment?»

Amelia nodded vaguely, watching the older man through her glass of Sauvignon Blanc. He was going to answer his own obtuse question, and the answer he had already decided upon was no. It was the puffery that preceded the crunch—was she going to fuck him tonight, or not? She was positive he had already answered that one in his head as well. Dinner had run to ninety-five bucks, not counting the wine or the tip. Dessert had been high-priced, higher-caloried, chocolate, elegant. Cabs had been taken and token gifts dispensed.

She had worked in loan approvals at Columbia Savings for nine months, riding the receptionist's desk. Older men frequently asked her out. When Quinn invited her to dinner, a weekend date, she had pulled his file, consulted his figures, and said yes. All the girls in the office did it. He drove a Jaguar XJS and was into condo development.

The dinner part had been completed two hours ago. Now it was his place. When your income hit the high six figures there was no such animal as date rape. Amelia had herpes. It was inactive tonight. Best to stay mum; it was like compensation. To her certain knowledge she had never bedded bisexuals or intravenous-drug users, and in truth she feared contracting AIDS in the same unfocused way she feared getting flattened in a crosswalk by a bus. It could happen. But probably not. There was no way in the world either of them could fit a condom over their mouths, so it was academic. Right?