Tales of Mystery and Imagination

Pía Barros: Golpe

Mamá, dijo el niño, ¿qué es un golpe? Algo que duele muchísimo y deja amoratado el lugar donde te dio. El niño fue hasta la puerta de casa. Todo el país que le cupo en la mirada tenía un tinte violáceo.

Bram Stoker: A Dream of Red Hands

The first opinion given to me regarding Jacob Settle was a simple descriptive statement. "He's a down-in-the-mouth chap": but I found that it embodied the thoughts and ideas of all his fellow-workmen. There was in the phrase a certain easy tolerance, an absence of positive feeling of any kind, rather than any complete opinion, which marked pretty accurately the man's place in public esteem. Still, there was some dissimilarity between this and his appearance which unconsciously set me thinking, and by degrees, as I saw more of the place and the workmen, I came to have a special interest in him. He was, I found, for ever doing kindnesses, not involving money expenses beyond his humble means, but in the manifold ways of forethought and forbearance and self-repression which are of the truer charities of life. Women and children trusted him implicitly, though, strangely enough, he rather shunned them, except when anyone was sick, and then he made his appearance to help if he could, timidly and awkwardly. He led a very solitary life, keeping house by himself in a tiny cottage, or rather hut, of one room, far on the edge of the moorland. His existence seemed so sad and solitary that I wished to cheer it up, and for the purpose took the occasion when we had both been sitting up with a child, injured by me through accident, to offer to lend him books. He gladly accepted, and as we parted in the grey of the dawn I felt that something of mutual confidence had been established between us.

The books were always most carefully and punctually returned, and in time Jacob Settle and I became quite friends. Once or twice as I crossed the moorland on Sundays I looked in on him; but on such occasions he was shy and ill at ease so that I felt diffident about calling to see him. He would never under any circumstances come into my own lodgings.

One Sunday afternoon, I was coming back from a long walk beyond the moor, and as I passed Settle's cottage stopped at the door to say "how do you do?" to him. As the door was shut, I thought that he was out, and merely knocked for form's sake, or through habit, not expecting to get any answer. To my surprise, I heard a feeble voice from within, though what was said I could not hear. I entered at once, and found Jacob lying half-dressed upon his bed. He was as pale as death, and the sweat was simply rolling off his face. His hands were unconsciously gripping the bed-clothes as a drowning man holds on to whatever he may grasp. As I came in he half arose, with a wild, hunted look in his eyes, which were wide open and staring, as though something of horror had come before him; but when he recognised me he sank back on the couch with a smothered sob of relief and closed his eyes. I stood by him for a while, quiet a minute or two, while he gasped. Then he opened his eyes and looked at me, but with such a despairing, woeful expression that, as I am a living man, I would have rather seen that frozen look of horror. I sat down beside him and asked after his health. For a while he would not answer me except to say that he was not ill; but then, after scrutinising me closely, he half arose on his elbow and said-

Alrededor de las once de la mañana, a petición mía, el vehículo oficial del ministerio me deja ante la vieja casa –ahora abandonada- donde viví cuando era niño. El asistente dobla mi abrigo en su brazo, esperándome. Aplasto el puro contra la acera deshecha. Sin pena, sin ternura, puede que con suficiencia y hasta con un ligero asco, veo el zócalo gris ratón, la puerta carcomida, los escombros de la salita. Subo las mismas escaleras que cuarenta años atrás me llevaban al pequeño dormitorio. Los balcones están cerrados. Parece de noche.

-¿De dónde vienes a estas horas, sinvergüenza?

Es el vozarrón de menestral de mi padre, repudiando una vez más mi conducta.

Bajo la cabeza para tolerar el horror. Miro mis pantalones cortos, mis zapatitos embarrados que se tocan por la puntera buscando un arrimo, un cálido refugio. En la penumbra, mi padre hace un movimiento amenazador, como si inclinara su cuerpo hacia delante. Oigo un eco familiar, ese roce seguido de un chasquido que se escucha cada vez que mi padre se quita el cinturón.

Brian Stableford: After the Stone Age

Mina had tried everything: WeightWatchers, Conley, grapefruit, Atkins, hypnotherapy and pumping iron. When she decided, after three gruelling months, that the Stone Age diet was doing her more harm than good, she felt that she had hit rock bottom in the abyss of despair. She weighed sixteen stone five pounds, just six pounds less than the day she had embarked on the Stone Age with such steely determination. She had been desperate to give up for three weeks, but she had forced herself to hang on until the day of her annual appraisal. She had wanted to look her best - but she didn't have to look in the mirror to know that it had been a hopeless ambition.

"I couldn't even get down to sixteen stone," she complained - aloud, because one of the few advantages of living alone was that she could talk to herself without being thought mad. She had been taught at school to calculate in kilograms but she preferred stones because the numbers were smaller. She had no difficulty dealing with big numbers - working for the National Audit Commission kept her busy with lots of those - but they seemed far less intimidating in the multitudinous bank accounts of the public purse than they did on her hips and thighs. Counting in kilograms also made her think longingly of continental Europe, which she missed sorely now she couldn't bear to travel any more. She couldn't cope with aeroplane seats, let alone Mediterranean heat.

She felt that she couldn't cope with her appraisal either, but there was no way of avoiding that. What made matters worse was that she really ought to have had her line-manager's job herself, and probably would have if Lucy Stanwere hadn't had a figure like Paula Radcliffe as well as an obvious hunger for further success. The fact that Lucy was able to wear four-inch heels, allowing her to tower over those condemned by gravity to flat soles, might conceivably have been irrelevant to her rapid ascent of the status ladder, but Mina didn't think so.

"Well," Mina said to herself, "at least I can have a hearty breakfast, now that I've fallen off the Stone Age wagon." She gorged herself on Welsh rarebit and chocolate milk, reflecting painfully on the roles that anxiety and depression had played in her history of comfort eating.

Sobre la mesa, allí estaba la multi, parpadeando suavemente en la penumbra del despacho. Su superficie estaba inmaculada, pese a que había cargado multitud de datos en su buffer. Se reía de mí, con su recién descubierta inteligencia de marioneta desahuciada. Apuré el cigarrillo, lo apagué en un cenicero cercano y me froté los ojos, doloridos de tanto esfuerzo de concentración sobre las líneas de código que me habían tenido ocupado durante las últimas doce horas de mi vida. Me acerqué a la mesa de trabajo, sin perder de vista el área satinada de aquel engendro con aspecto de folio antiguo. Todavía nada: la impresión de que se estaba burlando de mí, de nosotros, del mundo de los hombres en general, cada vez era más acentuada.

Me senté ante la vieja TFT, crují los dedos, y comencé a golpear el aire sobre el teclado holográfico. De cuando en cuando, mi mirada se desviaba hacia la multi, esperando ver aparecer un dibujo, un iconograma, una pizca de texto que me permitiera descubrir un atajo hacia la intrincada espuma cuántica que contenía, algo que me abriera el camino hacia el universo de nanocomponentes que ocultaba en su interior.

Nada. El horizonte cegador de la blancura.

Intenté acceder a ella ejecutando un programa que se camuflaba bajo el aspecto de un simple rastreador de puertos de comunicación. Cero. Frustración. Sentimiento de culpa. La empresa confiaba en mí. Los directivos habían apostado fuerte, habían proclamado a los cuatro vientos que la multi sería la solución empresarial del siglo, que contribuiría a un ahorro en consumibles que dispararía la cuenta de resultados, que con su presencia en el mundo corporativo las talas de árboles se reducirían en más de un sesenta por ciento en todo el planeta... lo creíamos, lo creíamos firmemente y de todo corazón; jamás había estado en nuestro ánimo engañar a nadie.

Elisabeth gave her invitation to the valet and received a gilt-edged program in return. It welcomed her to the Bearbrass Gentle Ladies Society Monthly Ball. The valet glanced at Elisabeth’s satchel and then escorted her into the ballroom.

Bearbrass had been a sleepy colonial outpost until gold was discovered in the nearby hills. Within three years, it had been transformed into the largest city in all of the colonies. Elisabeth did not think of this as necessarily an improvement.

A dozen chandeliers clung to the ceiling and paintings imported from the empire competed for space on the walls. An orchestra of more than twenty musicians waited on the stage at the far end of the room.

Mrs. Rittiker, the president of the Bearbrass Gentle Ladies Society, greeted Elisabeth at the entrance. She was a short, stout woman in her early fifties and wore a purple chiffon gown with a plunging neckline. “You’ve come without a chaperone again,” she said. “If I were half the gentle lady I pretend to be, I would be thoroughly scandalized.”

Elisabeth laughed. Although ostensibly the Gentle Ladies Society served as an organizer of social functions, the society’s inner council was devoted to recovering the lost knowledge of the ancient gentle ladies. She had known Mrs. Rittiker all of her life. She handed over the satchel. “Fresh from the book mines.”

Mrs. Rittiker opened the bag and took out a book. She brushed a speck of dirt from the cover and smiled when she read the title: The Gentle Ladies’ Guide to Midnight Apparitions. “No one has your talent for finding books, Elisabeth.”

She replaced the book in the satchel and handed it to a servant. “Take this to my carriage.” She took Elisabeth by the hand. “There are some handsome young men waiting to see you.” Mrs. Rittiker led her over to the other guests and a dozen young men formed a line in front of her.

Elisabeth suppressed a sigh. The only reason she came to the balls was to meet Bertie, and he was always irritatingly late.

“This is Horatio Lightfellow,” Mrs. Rittiker said. “He arrived on this morning’s zeppelin from the empire.”

“Charmed to meet you,” Lightfellow said. “At some point in the evening I would be most happy to inform you of the latest fashions in the capital.” His gaze strayed to Elisabeth’s hair. She had been born with hair made from gold.

Siempre estuve acosado por el temor a los fantasmas, hasta que distraídamente pasé de una habitación a otra sin utilizar los medios comunes.

Henry Kuttner: The secret of Kralitz

I AWOKE from profound sleep to find two black-swathed forms standing silently beside me, their faces pale blurs in the gloom. As I blinked to deal my sleep-dimmed eyes, one of them beckoned impatiently, and suddenly I realized the purpose of this midnight summons. For years I had been expecting it, ever since my father, the Baron Kralitz, had revealed to me the secret and the curse that hung over our ancient house. And so, without a word, I rose and followed my guides as they led me along the gloomy corridors of the castle that had been my home since birth.

As I proceeded there rose up in my mind the stern face of my father, and in my ears rang his solemn words as he told me of the legendary curse of the House of Kralitz, the unknown secret that was imparted to the eldest son of each generation—at a certain time.

"When?" I had asked my father as he lay on his death-bed, fighting back the approach of dissolution.

"When you are able to understand," he had told me, watching my face intently from beneath his tufted white brows. "Some are told the secret sooner than others. Since the first Baron Kralitz the secret has been handed down——"

He clutched at his breast and paused. It was fully five minutes before he had gathered his strength to speak again in his rolling, powerful voice. No gasping, death-bed confessions for the Baron Kralitz!

He said at last, "You have seen the ruins of the old monastery near the village, Franz. The first Baron burnt it and put the monks to the sword. The Abbot interfered too often with the Baron's whims. A girl sought shelter and the Abbot refused to give her up at the Baron's demand. His patience was at an end—you know the tales they still tell about him.

"He slew the Abbot, burned the monastery, and took the girl. Before he died the Abbot cursed his slayer, and cursed his sons for unborn generations. And it is the nature of this curse that is the secret of our house.

"I may not tell you what the curse is. Do not seek to discover it before it is revelled to you. Wait patiently, and in due time you will be taken by the warders of the secret down the stairway to the underground cavern. And then you will learn the secret of Kralitz."

As the last word passed my father's lips he died, his stern face still set in its harsh lines.

Milton ainda não abriu a sua loja, mas o concorrente já abriu a dele; e já está anunciando, já está vendendo, já está liquidando a preços baixo do custo. Milton ainda está na cama, ao lado da amante, desta mulher ilegítima, que nem bonita é, nem simpática; o concorrente já está de pé, alerta, atrás do balcão. A esposa – fiel companheira de tantos anos – está a seu lado, alerta também. Milton ainda não fez o desjejum (desjejum? Um cigarro, um copo de vinho, isto é desjejum?) - o concorrente já tomou suco de laranja, já comeu ovo, torrada, queijo, já sorveu uma grande xícara de café com leite. Já está nutrido.

Milton ainda está nu, o concorrente já se apresenta elegantemente vestido.

Milton mal abriu os olhos, o concorrente já leu os jornais da manhã, já está a par das cotações da bolsa e das tendencias do mercado. Milton ainda não disse uma palavra, o concorrente já falou com clientes, com figurões da política, com o fiscal amigo, com os fornecedores. Milton ainda está no subúrbio; o concorrente, vencendo todos os problemas de transito, já chegou ao centro da cidade, já está solidamente instalado no seu prédio próprio. Milton ainda não sabe se o dia é chuvoso, ou de sol, o concorrente já está seguramente informado de que vão subir os preços dos artigos de couro. Milton ainda não viu os filhos (sem falar da esposa, de quem está separado); o concorrente já criou as filhas, já formou-as em Direito e Química, já as casou, já tem netos.

Milton ainda não começou a viver.

O concorrente já está sentindo uma dor no peito, já está caindo sobre o balcão, já está estertorando, os olhos arregalados – já esta morrendo, enfim.

Vicente Huidobro: Tragedia

María Olga es una mujer encantadora. Especialmente la parte que se llama Olga.

Se casó con un mocetón grande y fornido, un poco torpe, lleno de ideas honoríficas, reglamentadas como árboles de paseo.

Pero la parte que ella casó era su parte que se llamaba María. Su parte Olga permanecía soltera y luego tomó un amante que vivía en adoración ante sus ojos.

Ella no podía comprender que su marido se enfureciera y le reprochara infidelidad. María era fiel, perfectamente fiel. ¿Qué tenía él que meterse con Olga? Ella no comprendía que él no comprendiera. María cumplía con su deber, la parte Olga adoraba a su amante.

¿Era ella culpable de tener un nombre doble y de las consecuencias que esto puede traer consigo?

Así, cuando el marido cogió el revolver, ella abrió los ojos enormes, no asustados sino llenos de asombro, por no poder entender un gesto tan absurdo.

Pero sucedió que el marido se equivocó y mató a María, a la parte suya, en vez de matar a la otra. Olga continuó viviendo en brazos de su amante, y creo que aún sigue feliz, muy feliz, sintiendo sólo que es un poco zurda.

George Saunders: Sea oak

AT SIX MR. FRENDT comes on the P.A. and shouts, "Welcome to Joysticks!" Then he announces Shirts Off. We take off our flightjackets and fold them up. We take off our shirts and fold them up. Our scarves we leave on. Thomas Kirster's our beautiful boy. He's got long muscles and bright-blue eyes. The minute his shirt comes off two fat ladies hustle up the aisle and stick some money in his pants and ask will he be their Pilot. He says sure. He brings their salads. He brings their soups. My phone rings and the caller tells me to come see her in the Spitfire mock-up. Does she want me to be her Pilot? I'm hoping. Inside the Spitfire is Margie, who says she's been diagnosed with Chronic Shyness Syndrome, then hands me an Instamatic and offers me ten bucks for a close-up of Thomas's tush.

Do I do it? Yes I do.

It could be worse. It is worse for Lloyd Betts. Lately he's put on weight and his hair's gone thin. He doesn't get a call all shift and waits zero tables and winds up sitting on the P-51 wing, playing solitaire in a hunched-over position that gives him big gut rolls.

I Pilot six tables and make forty dollars in tips plus five an hour in salary.

After closing we sit on the floor for Debriefing. "There are times," Mr. Frendt says, "when one must move gracefully to the next station in life, like for example certain women in Africa or Brazil, I forget which, who either color their faces or don some kind of distinctive headdress upon achieving menopause. Are you with me? One of our ranks must now leave us. No one is an island in terms of being thought cute forever, and so today we must say good-bye to our friend Lloyd. Lloyd, stand up so we can say good-bye to you. I'm sorry We are all so very sorry"

Se trataba de un muchacho corriente: en los pantalones se le formaban rodilleras, leía historietas, hacía ruido cuando comía, se metía los dedos a la nariz, roncaba en la siesta, se llamaba Armando. Corriente en todo menos en una cosa: tenía Otro Yo.

El Otro Yo usaba cierta poesía en la mirada, se enamoraba de las actrices, mentía cautelosamente, se emocionaba en los atardeceres. Al muchacho le preocupaba mucho su Otro Yo y le hacía sentirse incómodo frente a sus amigos. Por otra parte el Otro Yo era melancólico, y debido a ello, Armando no podía ser tan vulgar como era su deseo.

Una tarde Armando llegó cansado del trabajo, se quitó los zapatos, movió lentamente los dedos de los pies y encendió la radio. En la radio estaba Mozart, pero el muchacho se durmió. Cuando despertó el Otro Yo lloraba con desconsuelo. En el primer momento, el muchacho no supo qué hacer, pero después se rehizo e insultó concienzudamente al Otro Yo. Este no dijo nada, pero a la mañana siguiente se había suicidado.

Al principio la muerte del Otro Yo fue un rudo golpe para el pobre Armando, pero enseguida pensó que ahora sí podría ser enteramente vulgar. Ese pensamiento lo reconfortó.

Sólo llevaba cinco días de luto, cuando salió a la calle con el propósito de lucir su nueva y completa vulgaridad. Desde lejos vio que se acercaban sus amigos. Eso le lleno de felicidad e inmediatamente estalló en risotadas.

PROLOGUE

OUT of about two hundred and thirty cases more or less nearly akin to that I have entitled "Green Tea," I select the following which I call "The Familiar."

To this MS., Doctor Hesselius has, after his wont, attached some sheets of letter-paper, on which are written, in his hand nearly as compact as print, his own remarks upon the case. He says:

"In point of conscience, no more unexceptionable narrator than the venerable Irish Clergyman who has given me this paper, on Mr. Barton's case, could have been chosen. The statement is, however, medically imperfect. The report of an intelligent physician, who had marked its progress, and attended the patient, from its earlier stages to its close, would have supplied what is wanting to enable me to pronounce with confidence. I should have been acquainted with Mr Barton's probable hereditary predispositions; I should have known, possibly by very early indicators, something of a remoter origin of the disease than can now be ascertained.

"In a rough way, we may reduce all similar cases to three distinct classes. They are founded on the primary distinction between the subjective and the objective. Of those whose senses are alleged to be subject to supernatural impressions — some are simply visionaries, and propagate the illusions of which they complain from diseased brain or nerves. Others are, unquestionably, infested by, as we term them, spiritual agencies, exterior to themselves. Others, again, owe their sufferings to a mixed condition. The interior sense, it is true, is opened; but it has been and continues open by the action of disease. This form of disease may, in one sense, be compared to the loss of the scarf-skin, and a consequent exposure of surfaces for whose excessive sensitiveness nature has provided a muffling. The loss of this covering is attended by an habitual impassibility, by influences against which we were intended to be guarded. But in the case of the brain, and the nerves immediately connected with its functions and its sensuous impressions, the cerebral circulation undergoes periodically that vibratory disturbance which, I believe, I have satisfactorily examined and demonstrated in my MS. Essay, A. 17. This vibratory disturbance differs, as I there prove, essentially from the congestive disturbance, the phenomena of which are examined in A. 19. It is, when excessive, invariably accompanied by illusions.

"Had I seen Mr. Barton, and examined him upon the points in his case which need elucidation, I should have without difficulty referred those phenomena to their proper disease. My diagnosis is now, necessarily, conjectural."

Thus writes Doctor Hesselius; and adds a great deal which is of interest only to a scientific physician.

The Narrative of the Rev. Thomas Herbert, which furnishes all that is known of the case will be found in the chapters that follow.

CHAPTER I

FOOTSTEPS

I WAS a young man at the time, and intimately acquainted with some of the actors in this strange tale; the impression which its incidents made on me, therefore, were deep and lasting. I shall now endeavour, with precision, to relate them all, combining, of course, in the narrative, whatever I have learned from various sources, tending, however imperfectly, to illuminate the darkness which involves its progress and termination.

Time traveler's thought: "What's the password?"