Philip K. Dick: Captive market

Saturday morning, about eleven o'clock, Mrs. Edna Berthelson was ready to make her little trip. Although it was a weekly affair, consuming four hours of her valuable business time, she made the profitable trip alone, preserving for herself the integrity of her find.

Because that was what it was. A find, a stroke of incredible luck. There was nothing else like it, and she had been in business fifty-three years. More, if the years in her father's store were counted—but they didn't really count. That had been for the experience (her father made that clear); no pay was involved. But it gave her the understanding of business, the feel of operating a small country store, dusting pencils and unwrapping flypaper and serving up dried beans and chasing the cat out of the cracker barrel where he liked to sleep.

Now the store was old, and so was she. The big, heavyset, black-browed man who was her father had died long ago; her own children and grandchildren had been spawned, had crept out over the world, were everywhere. One by one they had appeared, lived in Walnut Creek, sweated through the dry, sun-baked summers, and then gone on, leaving one by one as they had come. She and the store sagged and settled a little more each year, became a little more frail and stem and grim. A little more themselves.

That morning very early Jackie said: "Grandmaw, where are you going?" Although he knew, of course, where she was going. She was going out in her truck as she always did; this was the Saturday trip. But he liked to ask; he was pleased by the stability of the answer. He liked having it always the same.

To another question there was another unvarying answer, but this one didn't please him so much. It came in answer to the question. "Can I come along?"

The answer to that was always no.

Edna Berthelson laboriously carried packages and boxes from the back of the store to the rusty, upright pickup truck. Dust lay over the truck; its red-metal sides were bent and corroded. The motor was already on; it was wheezing and heating up in the midday sun. A few drab chickens pecked in the dust around its wheels. Under the porch of the store a plump white shaggy sheep squatted, its face vapid, indolent, indifferently watching the activity of the day. Cars and trucks rolled along Mount Diablo Boulevard. Along Lafayette Avenue a few shoppers strolled, farmers and their wives, petty businessmen, farmhands, some city women in their gaudy slacks and print shirts, sandals, bandannas. In the front of the store the radio tinnily played popular songs.

"I asked you a question," Jackie said righteously. "I asked you where you're going."

Mrs. Berthelson bent stiffly over to lift the last armload of boxes. Most of the loading had been done the night before by Arnie the Swede, the hulking, white-haired hired man who did the heavy work around the store. "What?" she murmured vaguely, her gray, wrinkled face twisting with concentration. "You know perfectly well where I'm going. "

Jackie trailed plaintively after her, as she reentered the store to look for her order book. "Can I come? Please, can I come along? You never let me come—you never let anybody come. "

"Of course not," Mrs. Berthelson said sharply. "It's nobody's business. "

"But I want to come along," Jackie explained.

Ángel Olgoso: Lección de música

Fue en el castillo familiar, no muy distante de la abadía cisterciense de Flavan -cierto día en que Guillaume de Langres, primogénito de doce años, recibía lecciones de clavicordio con el preceptor a su espalda y vio pasar, entre el gabinete de teca y el orbe mecánico, a un carnero completamente desollado, sangriento, escapando con terribles balidos del dormitorio de su madre parturienta a la que las matronas acababan de aplicar un cataplasma con la piel caliente del animal-, cuando Guillaume tuvo la evidencia de que el pelo se le había vuelto blanco.

Algernon Blackwood: The Willows

After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapesth, the Danube enters a region of singular loneliness and desolation, where its waters spread away on all sides regardless of a main channel, and the country becomes a swamp for miles upon miles, covered by a vast sea of low willow-bushes. On the big maps this deserted area is painted in a fluffy blue, growing fainter in colour as it leaves the banks, and across it may be seen in large straggling letters the word Sumpfe, meaning marshes.

In high flood this great acreage of sand, shingle-beds, and willow-grown islands is almost topped by the water, but in normal seasons the bushes bend and rustle in the free winds, showing their silver leaves to the sunshine in an ever-moving plain of bewildering beauty. These willows never attain to the dignity of trees; they have no rigid trunks; they remain humble bushes, with rounded tops and soft outline, swaying on slender stems that answer to the least pressure of the wind; supple as grasses, and so continually shifting that they somehow give the impression that the entire plain is moving and alive. For the wind sends waves rising and falling over the whole surface, waves of leaves instead of waves of water, green swells like the sea, too, until the branches turn and lift, and then silvery white as their under-side turns to the sun.

Happy to slip beyond the control of the stern banks, the Danube here wanders about at will among the intricate network of channels intersecting the islands everywhere with broad avenues down which the waters pour with a shouting sound; making whirlpools, eddies, and foaming rapids; tearing at the sandy banks; carrying away masses of shore and willow-clumps; and forming new islands innumerably which shift daily in size and shape and possess at best an impermanent life, since the flood-time obliterates their very existence.

Properly speaking, this fascinating part of the river's life begins soon after leaving Pressburg, and we, in our Canadian canoe, with gipsy tent and frying-pan on board, reached it on the crest of a rising flood about mid-July. That very same morning, when the sky was reddening before sunrise, we had slipped swiftly through still-sleeping Vienna, leaving it a couple of hours later a mere patch of smoke against the blue hills of the Wienerwald on the horizon; we had breakfasted below Fischeramend under a grove of birch trees roaring in the wind; and had then swept on the tearing current past Orth, Hainburg, Petronell (the old Roman Carnuntum of Marcus Aurelius), and so under the frowning heights of Thelsen on a spur of the Carpathians, where the March steals in quietly from the left and the frontier is crossed between Austria and Hungary.

Racing along at twelve kilometres an hour soon took us well into Hungary, and the muddy waters -- sure sign of flood -- sent us aground on many a shingle-bed, and twisted us like a cork in many a sudden belching whirlpool before the towers of Pressburg (Hungarian, Poszony) showed against the sky; and then the canoe, leaping like a spirited horse, flew at top speed under the grey walls, negotiated safely the sunken chain of the Fliegende Brucke ferry, turned the corner sharply to the left, and plunged on yellow foam into the wilderness of islands, sand-banks, and swamp-land beyond -- the land of the willows.

The change came suddenly, as when a series of bioscope pictures snaps down on the streets of a town and shifts without warning into the scenery of lake and forest. We entered the land of desolation on wings, and in less than half an hour there was neither boat nor fishing-hut nor red roof, nor any single sign of human habitation and civilisation within sight. The sense of remoteness from the world of human kind, the utter isolation, the fascination of this singular world of willows, winds, and waters, instantly laid its spell upon us both, so that we allowed laughingly to one another that we ought by rights to have held some special kind of passport to admit us, and that we had, somewhat audaciously, come without asking leave into a separate little kingdom of wonder and magic -- a kingdom that was reserved for the use of others who had a right to it, with everywhere unwritten warnings to trespassers for those who had the imagination to discover them.

Mónica Lavín: Motivo literario

Le escribió tantos versos, cuentos, canciones y hasta novelas que una noche, al buscar con ardor su cuerpo tibio, no encontró más que una hoja de papel entre las sábanas.

Lisa Morton: The Death of Splatter

‘Stumpfuckers?’

Lee Denny looks up from his laptop and has to stop himself from gaping: the woman who has stopped by his coffee shop table and is commenting on his book title isn’t really beautiful, but with her dark crimson hair, lean curves and hint-of-husk voice she’s certainly striking. She glances from the paperback book beside the laptop and empty coffee cup, up to Lee’s face. Lee manages a smile.

‘It’s a horror novel.’

She picks it up, scanning the cover art which shows a pen-and-ink drawing of a leering hunchback in overalls, and Lee’s name in a jagged font.

‘You’re reading this?’

‘I wrote it.’

She cocks her head and arches one eyebrow, then reads his name out loud.

‘That’s me.’

Her next question surprises him. ‘I’d like to read it.’

He’s embarrassed to realise that he has simultaneously become hard (thankfully under the table) and has flushed, heat enveloping his face, making him stumble on his words. ‘It’s . . . uh . . . pretty rough stuff.’

She glances at the book one last time, then sets it down. ‘Sounds good. I’ll pick one up.’

He tears off a piece of slightly wadded paper napkin, pulls a pen from his laptop case and scribbles down a URL for her. ‘You won’t find it at your average chain bookstore, but you can buy it online direct from the publisher.’

Carlos José Gomes de Carvalho: Missa do galo

Com a navalha no bolso, esperou a mulher na porta da igreja. Quando ela apareceu, foi se chegando, pegou no braço dela e disse:

– Quero falar contigo, Maria.

Ela não respondeu, Puxou o braço e foi caminhando. Ele insistiu:

– Volta, Maria.

Ela parou no primeiro degrau. Olhou-o, antes de responder, e ele sentiu vergonha da roupa amassada, da gravata puída, da barba de dias.

– Não adianta, Justino, já disse.

– Não gostas de mim?

– Gosto.

– Então volta, Maria.

– Não adianta, Justino, não adianta.

Continuou a caminhar. Ele seguiu:

– Pensa nas crianças.

– Já pensei.

– Pensa em mim.

– É só o que faço.

Orlando Enrique van Bredam: Preocupación

—No se preocupe. Todo saldrá bien —dijo el Verdugo.

—Eso es lo que me preocupa —respondió el Condenado a muerte.

Ambrose Bierce: A Cold Greeting

This is a story told by the late Benson Foley of San Francisco:

“In the summer of 1881 I met a man named James H. Conway, a resident of Franklin, Tennessee. He was visiting San Francisco for his health, deluded man, and brought me a note of introduction from Mr. Lawrence Barting. I had known Barting as a captain in the Federal army during the civil war. At its close he had settled in Franklin, and in time became, I had reason to think, somewhat prominent as a lawyer. Barting had always seemed to me an honorable and truthful man, and the warm friendship which he expressed in his note for Mr. Conway was to me sufficient evidence that the latter was in every way worthy of my confidence and esteem. At dinner one day Conway told me that it had been solemnly agreed between him and Barting that the one who died first should, if possible, communicate with the other from beyond the grave, in some unmistakable way - just how, they had left (wisely, it seemed to me) to be decided by the deceased, according to the opportunities that his altered circumstances might present.

“A few weeks after the conversation in which Mr. Conway spoke of this agreement, I met him one day, walking slowly down Montgomery street, apparently, from his abstracted air, in deep thought. He greeted me coldly with merely a movement of the head and passed on, leaving me standing on the walk, with half-proffered hand, surprised and naturally somewhat piqued. The next day I met him again in the office of the Palace Hotel, and seeing him about to repeat the disagreeable performance of the day before, intercepted him in a doorway, with a friendly salutation, and bluntly requested an explanation of his altered manner. He hesitated a moment; then, looking me frankly in the eyes, said:

“‘I do not think, Mr. Foley, that I have any longer a claim to your friendship, since Mr. Barting appears to have withdrawn his own from me - for what reason, I protest I do not know. If he has not already informed you he probably will do so.’

“‘But,’ I replied, ‘I have not heard from Mr. Barting.’

“‘Heard from him!’ he repeated, with apparent surprise. ‘Why, he is here. I met him yesterday ten minutes before meeting you. I gave you exactly the same greeting that he gave me. I met him again not a quarter of an hour ago, and his manner was precisely the same: he merely bowed and passed on. I shall not soon forget your civility to me. Good morning, or - as it may please you - farewell.’

“All this seemed to me singularly considerate and delicate behavior on the part of Mr. Conway.

Raúl Aceves Lozano: Entre caníbales

¡Mm, realmente estaba muy sabrosa la carnita, pero lo que es el alma estaba como para chuparse los dedos!

Henry Kuttner: Chameleon Man

TIM VANDERHOF wavered. He stood ten feet from a glass-paneled door, his apprehensive gaze riveted upon it, and swayed back and forth like a willow. Or, perhaps, an aspen. He wasn't sure. Yes, it was an aspen—a quaking aspen. His ears seemed to twitch gently as he listened to the low rumble of voices from the inner office of S. Horton Walker, president of The Svelte Shop, Fifth Avenue's snootiest establishment for supplying exclusive models of dresses, lingerie, and what-not.

Let us examine Mr. Vanderhof. He did not, at the moment, look like a man who, within a very short time, was going to turn into what amounted to something rather like a chameleon. Nevertheless, mentally and spiritually, Tim Vanderhof was a mere mass of quivering protoplasm, and no great wonder, after the interview he had just had. He wasn't bad looking, though slightly pallid. His features were regular, his face a bit chubby, and his eyes held the expression of a startled fawn. They were brown, like his hair, and he had a pug nose.

He shivered slightly as the glass-paneled door opened. A Back appeared. Under it were two short, slightly bowed legs, and it was surmounted by a scarlet billiard-ball of a head. There was no neck. The Bade was draped in tweeds, and a strong smell of tobacco, brandy, and horses emanated from it.

The Back extended a large, capable hand, clenched it into a fist, and shook it warningly at someone inside the office.

"Gad, sir!" a deep voice boomed, "Gad! This is the last straw! Mrs. Quester will be furious. And I warn you, Walker, that I shall be furious too. I have stood enough of your trifling. Twice already you promised exclusive models of a dress for my wife, and then failed to deliver."

"But—" said a Voice.

"Silence!" bellowed the Back, and the Voice was cowed. "You have promised Model Forty-Three to Mrs. Quester. If you dare to exhibit it at your fashion show this afternoon, I shall call upon you with a riding-whip. I shall be here after the show, and you will have the dress ready for me to take to Mrs. Quester. You have had enough time to make alterations. Gad, sir—in Burma I have had men broken—utterly broken—for less than this."

The Voice, with a faint spark of antagonism, rallied. It said, "But."

"But me no buts, damn your eyes! This isn't Burma, but you will find that Colonel Quester still knows how to use his fists—you tradesman! I shall be back this afternoon, and—brrrrmph!"

"Yes, Colonel," the Voice assented weakly, and the Back turned, revealing to the watching Vanderhof a round, crimson face with a bristling, iron-gray mustache, and beetling brows from beneath which lightning crackled menacingly. Brrmphing, Colonel Quester moved like a mastodon past the quaking Vanderhof and vanished through a door that seemed to open coweringly of its own accord at the man's advance. Vanderhof immediately turned and started to tiptoe away.

The Voice detected the sound of his departure. "Vanderhof!" it screamed. "Come here!"

Thus summoned, the unfortunate official halted, retraced his steps, and entered the inner sanctum. There he paused like a hypnotized rabbit, watching the Voice, who was also known as S. Horton Walker, president of The Svelte Shop.

Cristina Fernández Cubas: Mi hermana Elba

Aún ahora, a pesar del tiempo transcurrido, no me cuesta trabajo alguno descifrar aquella letra infantil plagada de errores, ni reconstruir los frecuentes espacios en blanco o las hojas burdamente arrancadas por alguna mano inhábil. Tampoco me representa ningún esfuerzo iluminar con la memoria el deterioro del papel, el desgaste de la escritura o la ligera pátina amarillenta de las fotografías. El diario es de piel, dispone de un cierre, que no recuerdo haber utilizado nunca, y se inicia el 24 de julio de 1954. Las primeras palabras, escritas a lápiz y en torpe letra bastardilla,dicen textualmente: Hoy, por la mañana, han vuelto a hablar de «aquello». Ojalá lo cumplan. Sigue luego una lista de las amigas del verano y una descripción detallada de mis progresos en el mar. En los días sucesivos continúo hablando de la playa, de mis juegos de niña, pero, sobre todo, de mis padres. El diario finaliza dos años después. Ignoro si más tarde proseguí el relato de mis confesiones infantiles en otro cuaderno, pero me inclino a pensar que no lo hice. Ignoro también el destino ulterior de varias fotografías, que en algún momento debí de arrancar —y de cuya existencia hablan aún ciertos restos de cola casera petrificados por el tiempo—, y el instante o los motivos precisos que me impulsaron a desfigurar, posiblemente con un cortaplumas, una reproducción del rostro de mi hermana Elba.

Durante el largo verano de 1954 sometí a mis padres a la más estricta vigilancia.Sabía que un importante acontecimiento estaba a punto de producirse e intuía que,de alguna manera, iba a resultar directamente afectada. Así me lo daban a entenderlos frecuentes cuchicheos de mis padres en la biblioteca y, sobre todo, las animadas conversaciones de cocina, interrumpidas en el preciso momento en que yo o la pequeña Elba asomábamos la cabeza por la puerta. En estos casos, sin embargo,siempre se deslizaba una palabra, un gesto, los compases de cualquier tonadilla a la moda bruscamente lanzados al aire, una media sonrisa demasiado tierna o demasiado forzada. Mi madre, en una ocasión, se apresuró a ocultar ciertos papeles de mi vista. La niñera, menos discreta y más dada a la lamentación y al drama,dejaba caer de vez en cuando algunas alusiones a su incierto futuro económico o a la maldad congénita e irreversible de la mayoría de seres humanos. Decidí mantenerme alerta y, al tiempo que mis ojos se abrían a cualquier detalle hasta entonces insignificante, mis labios se empeñaron en practicar una mudez fuera de toda lógica que, como pude comprobar de inmediato, producía el efecto de inquietar a cuantos me rodeaban.

Nunca como en aquella época mi padre se había mostrado tan comunicativo y obsequioso. Durante las comidas nos cubría de besos a Elba y a mí, se interesaba por nuestros progresos en el mar e, incluso, nos permitía mordisquear bombones a lo largo del día. A nadie parecía importarle que los platos de carne quedaran intactos sobre la mesa ni que nuestras almohadas volaran por los aires hasta pasada la medianoche. Mi silencio pertinaz no dejaba de obrar milagros. Notaba cómo mi madre esquivaba mi mirada, siempre al acecho, o cómo la cocinera cabeceaba con ternura cuando yo me empeñaba en conocer los secretos de las natillas caseras o el difícil arte de montar unas claras de huevo. En cierta oportunidad creo haberle oído murmurar: «Tú sí que te enteras de todo, pobrecita». Sus palabras me llenaron de orgullo.

Alice Munro: Dimension

Doree had to take three buses—one to Kincardine, where she waited for one to London, where she waited again, for the city bus out to the facility. She started the trip on a Sunday at nine in the morning. Because of the waiting times between buses, it took her until about two in the afternoon to travel the hundred-odd miles. All that sitting, either on buses or in the depots, was not a thing she should have minded. Her daily work was not of the sitting-down kind.

She was a chambermaid at the Comfort Inn. She scrubbed bathrooms and stripped and made beds and vacuumed rugs and wiped mirrors. She liked the work—it occupied her thoughts to a certain extent and tired her out so that she could sleep at night. She was seldom faced with a really bad mess, though some of the women she worked with could tell stories to make your hair curl. These women were older than her, and they all thought that she should try to work her way up. They told her that she should get trained for a job behind the desk, while she was still young and decent-looking. But she was content to do what she did. She didn’t want to have to talk to people.

None of the people she worked with knew what had happened. Or, if they did, they didn’t let on. Her picture had been in the paper—they’d used the photo he took of her with all three kids, the new baby, Dimitri, in her arms, and Barbara Ann and Sasha on either side, looking on. Her hair had been long and wavy and brown then, natural in curl and color, as he liked it, and her face bashful and soft—a reflection less of the way she was than of the way he wanted to see her.

Since then, she had cut her hair short and bleached and spiked it, and she had lost a lot of weight. And she went by her second name now: Fleur. Also, the job they had found for her was in a town a good distance away from where she used to live.

This was the third time she had made the trip. The first two times he had refused to see her. If he did that again she would just quit trying. Even if he did see her, she might not come again for a while. She was not going to go overboard. She didn’t really know what she was going to do.

Salomé Guadalupe Ingelmo: The Bicentennial Woman

El zapato de noche azul eléctrico brota de su pecho como un hongo tóxico.

‒Lo han dejado seco con el tacón. Un sólo golpe justo en el corazón: una fuerza sobrehumana. Diseñador de profesión. Un tipo tranquilo, nada de escándalos. Que se sepa, no le iba el sadomaso y ni siquiera era promiscuo: la misma pareja los últimos ocho años. Yo habría dicho un crimen pasional… Quizá, un súbito arranque de ira. Debe de haber cabreado mucho a alguien.

El inspector escucha atentamente con el rostro desencajado.

‒¡¿Cuántas veces te he repetido que no entres en casa sin las bayetas si he dado cera al suelo?! –fuera de sí, lo levanta en vilo y lo deja caer sobre el sillón.

La mira aterrado. Dónde la solícita atleta que pasaba el día limpiando al ritmo de sugerentes músicas orientales, armada de su inseparable plumero, ajena al cansancio, la frustración o los reproches de las mujeres normales. Su cuerpo sigue siendo perfecto, pero cada día resulta más evidente que algo no anda bien en sus circuitos. Se ha convertido en una suerte de Lara Croft desquiciada. Ya no reprime sus accesos de indignación ante la publicidad machista, los comentarios machistas, la moda machista...

‒¡A hacer puñetas! –grita de camino a la fiesta mientras lanza uno de sus zapatos de vertiginoso tacón por la ventanilla del coche‒. Sólo tú podías regalarme algo así. Sólo un hombre, alguien que no tuviese que ponérselos, podría diseñar algo tan incómodo. Cuándo os enteraréis de que no somos muñecas con las que jugar. De nada sirve un zapato desparejado, piensa para sus adentros.

Llevan casados un año. Aún está en garantía; podría descambiarla. Pero el inspector se ha acostumbrado a considerarla su esposa y, estúpidamente, sentiría remordimientos. Como remordimientos sentirá ella por saberse inadecuada. Ha de ser paciente.

En el escenario del crimen no hay huellas. Mientras él contempla la familiar pulcritud, una pluma fugitiva planea desde la lámpara y roza delicadamente su oreja.

Jack Ritchie: For all the rude people

"How old are you?" I asked!

His eyes were on the revolver I was holding. "Look, mister, there’s not much in the cash register, but take it all. I won’t make no trouble."

"I am not interested in your filthy money. How old are you?"

He was puzzled. "Forty-two."

I clicked my tongue. "What a pity. From your point of view, at least. You might have lived another twenty or thirty years if you had just taken the slight pains to be polite."

He didn’t understand.

"I am going to kill you," I said, "because of the four-cent stamp and because of the cherry candy."

He did not know what I meant by the cherry candy, but he did know about the stamp.

Panic raced into his face. "You must be crazy. You can’t kill me just because of that."

"But I can."

And I did.

When Dr. Briller told me that I had but four months to live, I was, of course, perturbed. "Are you positive you haven’t mixed up the X-rays? I’ve heard of such things."

"I’m afraid not, Mr. Turner."

I gave it more earnest thought. "The laboratory reports. Perhaps my name was accidentally attached to the wrong ..."

He shook his head slowly. "I double-checked. I always do that in cases like these. Sound medical practice, you know."

It was late afternoon and the time when the sun is tired. I rather hoped that when my time came to actually die, it might be in the morning. Certainly more cheerful.

"In cases like this," Dr. Briller said, "a doctor is faced with a dilemma. Shall he or shall he not tell his patient? I always tell mine. That enables them to settle their affairs and to have a fling, so to speak." He pulled a pad of paper toward him. "Also I’m writing a book. What do you intend doing with your remaining time?"

"I really don’t know. I’ve just been thinking about it for a minute or two, you know."

"Of course," Briller said. "No immediate rush. But when you do decide, you will let me know, won’t you? My book concerns the things that people do with their remaining time when they know just when they’re going to die."

He pushed aside the pad. "See me every two or three weeks. That way we’ll be able to measure the progress of your decline."

Briller saw me to the door. "I already have written up twenty-two cases like yours." He seemed to gaze into the future. "Could be a best seller, you know."

I have always lived a bland life. Not an unintelligent one, but bland.

I have contributed nothing to the world–and in that I have much in common with almost every soul on earth–but on the other hand I have not taken away anything either. I have, in short, asked merely to be left alone. Life is difficult enough without undue association with people.

What can one do with the remaining four months of a bland life?

I have no idea how long I walked and thought on that subject, but eventually I found myself on the long curving bridge that sweeps down to join the lake drive. The sounds of mechanical music intruded themselves upon my mind and I looked down.