The Small Assassin

By Ray Bradbury

     Hi, everybody! I have a bit of free time after a shower of homework and I'd like to recommend a very cool story. Now returning with my favorite author. Here comes a story that may make baby-haters like it. This short story comes from a book I previously mentioned "The October Country".

Be afraid! I'm all powerful! I'm smirking at you!

     Alice Leiber has just survived a difficult delivering and she hates her baby. (See, baby-haters must be agreeing with her already.) David, her husband, is told by Dr. Jeffers that it will take time for her to come to love their baby. The difficult delivering that almost killed her must have make her blame the baby. So he must tolerate everything strange she may say.

     So Alice and David head to their home. Alice carrying the baby in her arms like she should but not motherly enough, just as she was carrying a porcelain figure which bugs David. Once in the house, Alice acts indifferent toward the child even though David makes an effort in to her showing some interest for him. Finally when they let him in his crib and head to their own room, Alice tells him she's afraid of him and thanks him for not getting mad at her. She starts explaining to him that she doesn't believe him to be harmless. The baby hates her and wants her dead. He tries to assure her that that can't be possible. Alice explains to him that she can't trust it. People have rules to know right from wrong. Between David and herself love shields each other from the other. But the baby is so new. He doesn't know right from wrong, knows no rules. He's amoral. David tells her that they would teach him but Alice looks reluctant.

     The baby starts crying in the other room and David decides to move the crib to their room much to Alice displease. There the blue-eyes baby gazes from its crib. Lights turn off and David feels Alice rush into her arms shaking. David suddenly remembers he will be out of town for a few days, the help they hired will come on Friday. Alice promises to look after the baby.

I thinks that's everyone's case.

     David heads to work and away. He's too busy and tired from work when he receives a call. It's Dr. Jeffers who tells him Alice is in the hospital with pneumonia. David rapidly returns and Dr. Jeffers explains to him that she got pneumonia due to exhaustion as she was being too good a mother. When the doctor leaves, Alice moans to David. The baby, the baby wouldn't stop crying at night. He wouldn't let her rest. He was all day still but at night he wouldn't let her sleep. He knew she was weak and drives her to pneumonia. She admits he tried to kill him since the first day he was gone. He tried smothering him against the pillow. She just put him upside-down into the pillow and waited, but when she returned the baby was already in her back smiling. Since then she didn't took care of him at all, she believes the help took care of the baby.
   
     Later on, Dr. Jeffers tells David that it wasn't the babies fault. She just tries to blame her troubles on him. He must shower her in love and be patient. Eventually she will understand the baby is harmless and start to love it. And so David does. Four months have passed and Alice seems to become healthier and her fears less frequent. Yet she would still shake in fear when the door to their bedroom opened a few inches for no reason or thought there was something in the hallway. One night while Alice was sleeping in his arms, he heard the baby crying. He decided to get the milk himself. He walked in the darkness and next to the stairs he slipped with something. He felt himself being thrown to the stairs but somehow managed to grab the railway. He cursed and grabbed the thing he had slipped with. He grew pale. It was a small doll he had got for the baby.

I'm sorry! I was just joking when I got you a doll.
I know that you're a boy, that's why it's funny.

     Next morning, when Alice left him in work she told him he couldn't deal with it anymore. She still fears the baby and wants to get away of it for a bit. Have some vacations and leave the baby to someone else. David tells her she will take her with a psychologist and if he decides so they would go on a vacation. David thought for a moment that Alice would start crying but she finally agrees.

     While he is at work he starts thinking if he should tell her about what happened last night but decides not to as that would only freak her out more. Accident are after all accidents. He returns home. Everything is quiet, a few cars honking faraway in the avenue. He slides the key into the keyhole and opens the door. Sunlight falls at the bottom of the stairs from the window and into the doll. But he isn't looking at the doll. He rushes to Alice who is at the bottom of the stairs like a twisted doll that doesn't want to play anymore. Ever. He grabs her in his arms, hugs her, calls her. But she's dead. Desperately he rushes to the baby's bedroom and there he finds the baby gasping with his face red as if he had tired himself by crying. He yells to him, "She's dead!," for no reason.

You're right. I should try throwing them into the stairs.

     In the meantime he must have called Dr. Jeffers but he can't really remember. He slaps him and tells him to snap out of it. He tells him the baby killed her as he tried last night with him. Dr. Jeffers tells him that it's just a baby but David explains to him that maybe what if one baby out of a million was born different. This one could already think, understand and hate. He could start moving faster than the others. That must be why he was always tired even when they didn't hear him cry. He had exhausted himself by climbing the crib and moving around in the hallway! Even so Dr. Jeffers tells him that even if he was right murder is motivated, what could have motivated a baby to kill their own parents. David told him what the thought. What if the baby hated that it was taken away from its peaceful slumber at birth. Sent out into a cold world where he had to provide, see and compete for himself. He hated Alice for that and his father as well. He wanted them death.

     He tells him how he knows now what name he should have. Lucifer. Oh, how he wants to kill him. Dr. Jeffers tells him he needs to sleep. He gives him some sedatives and tells him he will come tomorrow in the afternoon to see him. David goes to his bed and feels his consciousness slip but as he was falling asleep he thought he saw a white thing moving in the hallway.

     Dr. Jeffers arrives in the afternoon as promised. He finds the door open, enters and calls for David. No answer but thinks he just saw a white blur somewhere. He leaves his suitcase in the chair next to the door. He can smell gas. He rushes to the second floor and into David's room. He closes the valve next to the door and opens the windows. While coughing he heads to examine David. His body is already cold. He died some hours ago. He ponders in the hallway. David couldn't have committed suicide, the sedatives he gave him would only lose effect now. A thought slipped through his mind. He went to the baby's room and opened the door. He looked at the crib. It's empty. The baby killed David but the door to his room closed and he couldn't get back. But he would find him. He had brought him into this world, he could send it out of it too. Oh, now he was talking just like Alice and David!

     He went where he left his suitcase and took something out of it. He saw a white blur in the other room. He walked half a dozen small steps to where he was. He raised his hand to sunlight.
   
     "Look, baby, something pretty, something bright"

     A scalpel.

Remember an apple a day keeps a doctor away.

     Oh, such a cool story. I just love Bradbury's short stories. They're the best. Just for your information I don't hate babies but I do believe that they're amoral. It's not new to anyone that babies are selfish. 

     But I think Alice and David lacked luck. I mean, they get the only precocious child in millions and maybe he was also a gifted baby as he already knew you could kill someone with natural gas. Or maybe David suddenly started talking with Alice about how the valve next to their door could kill them when their murderous baby was hearing.

     So, happy reading!

The Emissary

By Ray Bradbury

Same exact book I've got.
Best present ever.

     Long time no see. Since I'm back to school I have read lots of stories I didn't read in vacations. Now that I don't have homework I can finally write something. Once again by my favorite author this is a small story that can be found in the book: "The October Country".

     Martin is a boy who has a dog. So far so good and nice except that Martin is very sickly so he always stays in bed. The only creature that works as an emissary between the outside world and him is his nameless dog who likes to dig in other neighbors' gardens. Dog in his walks brings him leaves, plants and many things for Martin to see and imagine. Martin also uses Dog to bring people to visit him as the dog corners, begs and guides people back home.

     One day Dog brings home the one who should have been his teacher if he went to school, Miss Haight. Martin really loves Miss Haight as she complements Dog as an emissary in ways Dog cannot do. He visits him everyday, brings him muffins, talks to him about many things and she loves Dog. So far a heartwarming story. That is until one Monday his mom tells him that she died a mile away from town. Martin couldn't believe it and asked where she was going. His mom told him they were going to bury her and Martin couldn't believe she could stay idle as Dog when he faked death couldn't stay that long still. Her mom warned him to stop talking like that and Martin had to deal with it. Miss Haight was never coming back.

It seems there's a 25 min movie of it.

     To boot one day Dog doesn't come back home after a week of whimpering and coming late. Martin stood absent in his room, now without his dog to connect him to the world. Just seeing life pass by and get bored in bed. One night his parents went outside, he stood there wishing Dog would come back. Suddenly, faraway he hears a bark. Martin glues himself to the window, waiting, hearing Dog coming closer and closer. He heard him barking at the door and whimpering. Martin couldn't get out of bed and hoped his mom would come back home early so she would open the door for him. The door opened, someone gentle enough had let dog in. Dog rushed upstairs and into Martin's bed. Martin cried how he missed him and hugged him. That is until he detected a strange smell on him. The smell of foul earth, putrified soil. He had been digging and deep.

 

Good dog! You can bring people back to life!

 "Dog was a bad dog digging where he shouldn't. Dog was a good dog, always making friends. Dog loved people. Dog brought them home."

     And now in the dark stairs he heard the sound of dragging feet coming closer and closer. The door whispered in. Martin had company.

     Yep, the loving and scary story of a boy and his nameless dog. I loved it. My favorite short story so far in this book. They've already won me over with the appearance of the dog. I'd love to have a dog like that although I wouldn't want him bringing dead people over. Happy ending, dog comes back, teacher comes back.

Happy reading!

We Can Remember It for You Wholesale

By Philip K. Dick

Hi, everybody, out there! This is a very nice short story of about 30-40 pages I read some months ago. 

What may interest you about it is that this story was adapted to make the two films known as "Total Recall" which take the idea of this story into their plots. I have to say the short story is different from the movies but the idea of false memories and the name of some characters are the same.

It's a story worth reading. So read it!

     Douglas Quail was an unsatisfied clerk who only wished for one thing: To go to Mars. His wife constantly makes fun of him reminding him he's only a employee and Quail knows that normal people don't go to Mars, only secret agents of Interplan and the like... so Quail makes the decisión that if he's too poor to actually go to Mars, he may buy an artifical memory of him being a secret agent who went there. He visits REKAL where he meets McClane, the boss, which assures a skeptical Quail of the workings of the artifical memory. He gives him information of how the trip will be so real in his mind, and how back home he will have solid but fake proof of his trip and that he will not remember coming to REKAL. Quaid is convinced by the boss's words and is set to be implanted the memories. 

     The boss starts gathering the fake proof when he receives a message that something went odd. When he arrives the technicians tell him that he responded strangely with the narkidrine, a sedative truth drug. A now colder and unconcious Quail reveals he actually is a secret agent who went to Mars which memories had been erased. The owner and the technicians feeling they're messing with something dangerous decide to get rid of him without altering his memories expecting he doesn't recall the trip to Mars or to REKAL. McClane then puts in his jacket half of the refund.

     Quail not remembering about REKAL recalls his time recollecting the worm-like fauna in Mars. He searches for the container in his jacket and finds an envelope. He suddenly remembers his trip to REKAL and furiously heads back to demand the full refund. He accuses the owner of giving him a hazy memory and the absence of the proof that should have appeared at his house. McClane returns his fee and recommends him that he doesn't tell anybody of the partial memory he has. 

     Angry, Quail returns to his house and searches for materials in a drawer to write a complaint... he then finds a familiar box full of worm-like fauna from Mars and starts doubting whether he went or not. Kirsten, his wife, arrives and Quail begs her to tell him whether he went to Mars o not. Kirsten treats him as if crazy, doesn't respond to his answer and abandons him. Suddenly, Interplan officials appear in his house who reading his thoughts know he's remembering something he shouldn't and is dangerous for their supreme leader's image. As they argue about what to do, Quail starts recalling even more until he remembers the reason he was sent there and isn't suprised they erased his memories. He was a government assassin sent to Mars to murder someone but what make the officers, who picked his thoughts, to consider him so dangerous and try to kill him was because he murder that someone after killing his 15 bodyguards. Quail disarms the agents and flees. 

     He stays at a park and thinks of a way to escape. Seeing it's impossible to hide from Interplan because he has a transmissor in his brain he makes them a deal. He will hand himself and they will implant on him an average person's memories. Interplan answers back that it will not be enough, when he has average memories he grows restless and will eventually seek again for REKAL or its competidors. Because of that he suggests them erasing his real memories but introducing a not-so-average memory that will satisfy his craving. Interplan agrees to hire psychiatrists to study him and implant him a memory in REKAL that will satisfy him if he surrenders himself. Quail seeing this as his only chance to survive, accepts it.

     The Interplan psychiatrist, after conducting his tests, points out his ultimate fantasy. This fantasy comes from his childhood dreams and consists that when he was 9 years old while he's in a lonely road he sees a little spaceship land on Earth which will be accompanied by many other spaceships to invade, but the aliens are surprised for his kindness and make a promise to him. To not invade Earth while he's alive. Quail seems pleased and Interplan agrees to it. They erase once again Quail's memories of Mars and take him to REKAL to implant the fake memory. McClane then seeks in his office for the fake proofs that they will insert in his house. While he's at it, his technicians call him: something was odd again. 

     McClane hurries to where Quail is. He has responded well to the narkidrine again but... he says he shouldn't have recalled it. Yet he just couldn't forget an event like that. They gave him a gratitude scroll. He even remembers the invisible destroying baton, which is in the same drawer where the martian fauna is, they gave him which he used to kill that man in Mars. McClane then head backs to his office to return the fake proof and recommend the Interplan agents not to kill him or they will come back.  

I felt goosebumps when I read this story, it's really good. I like this version better than the movie ones. The book is much more better for obvious reasons than this summary. I highly recommend it. 

You can find it in almost any Philip K. Dick collection of stories.

Hope you liked it!

History Lesson

By Arthur C. Clarke

     Any of you looking for a classroom. GO AWAY! No school here! Damn you, enjoy you're vacations.

     Some of you may already know this author for his book and movie, "2001: A Space Odyssey". Well, this guy also wrote an amazing short story which tells about some lizard aliens from Venus who come to Earth to research an extinct civilization.

You can find this story in the book, "Expedition to Earth".

Hope you find it!

     The story begins following a group of surviving humans who head to a mountain, fleeing from the glaciers that come from the north.
     This group carries what their ancestors brought with them. Although they're not sure what they are anymore, they worship the precious relics.
     The head of the group then climbs the mountain which seems may resist the advance of the ice. When he gets to the summit he loses all hope. He can see now from the other side, from the south, the also approaching glaciers which he predicts in a couple of years will arrive along with the north ones and clash them. They hide the relics in the mountain and wait for the ice to reach them.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A world of lizard scientists but
no spider man.

     A lot of time after that, the reptile aliens from Venus arrive to Earth eager to discover the civilization which perished with the cooling of the sun that gave birth to life in Venus. They are intelligent beings who have found some relics in a mountain not buried under the ice.
     The most renowned scientists gather to try to study a relic which may give important information of how the dominant species' life was once on Earth. This relic is a film reel which the Venusines start seeing and are amazed and baffled by its contents.

      Then the story tells that no matter how much they study it and analyse it: They will never comprehend the contents of it. For they cannot understand the last words in the film: A Production of Walt Disney.

Hope you liked it! Again the story is much better and it's better if you don't read the summary which obviously has the spoiler in the end. 

Happy reading!

A Sound of Thunder

By Ray Bradbury

     Hi, I decided I will now talk about one of my favorite short stories!

     

     I really love Ray Bradbury's stories and this one is the one that I read the most. It even has a movie although I like the short story better. Another book of him I read a long while ago was Martian Chronicles but I will do an entry when I read it once again. But to really comprehend how amazing he is you have to read it, if you only read the summary you practically only get 1/8 of his awesomeness.

     You can find this story in the book called, "The Golden Apples of the Sun".

     Now enjoy!

Summary

     Now then this short story begins when Eckels goes to a Time Safari because he wants to hunt a Tyrannosaurus rex -you know, when you have lots of money why use it to help starving kids around the globe when you can hunt dinosaurs. Eckels chats with the man behind the desk about how if Keith hadn't won the election he may had come to escape the dictatorship instead. The man agrees and Eckels asks if they guarantee he comes back safely. The man doesn't ensure it and says he still has time to change his mind. Eckels angrily accuses him of trying to scare him and that he can't make him desist.

     Eckels is then introduced to his safari guide, Travis; his assistant, Lesperance; and fellow hunters, Billings and Kramer. Travis explains the rules -while they travel back in time- which include only shooting what they tell them to, only if they have red paint and to not get off of the floating path the safari made.

     Eckels then asks, "Why?" Travis explains that the government doesn't like them there and they pay a lot of money to have their franchise because they don't know the effect time travelling can have in the future and while they still don't know if its a drastic change or a minor one they are being extremely careful to not modify anything, not even to introduce their own bacteria in the ancient atmosphere. He explains how Lesperance comes back in time and tracks them to know when they're going to die, applies them red paint so they know it will not have anymore offspring.

     Eckels again ask why that's important to which a clearly irritated Travis states an example, "What if you step on a mouse?" He explains how he will therefore kill all future families that mouse and his offspring would have. Eckels its like, "Yeah, but they're only mice". He contiues explaining how because a lack in mice, kills a predator along with all his descendants and destroys the chain food in that area. This food chain then arrives to one of the first human beings who looking for food dies because of the lack of it which would have a meaning equal to killing a whole civilization. A scolded Eckels then shyly asks where's their dinosaur.

     Lesperance tells them it is about to arrive and they should get ready. As they wait the once wriggling jungle silences and then they hear a sound of thunder. The Tyrannosaurus emerges from the jungle and Bradbury details the ferocious creature so powerful, so almighty, so murderous that Eckels is overwhelmed and feels the gun in his hands is no more than a toy against the lizard monster. Eckels babbles horrified and is heard by the evil lizard who approaches the safari as Eckels flees to the time machine. While Travis, Lesperance, Billings and Kramer fight the Tyrannosaurus; Eckels in its shock steps off of the path and walks through the grass. 

     They manage to kill the Tyrannosaurus after blinding it, just as they kill it a giant branch falls over the corpse -the branch that was supposed to kill it. Billings and Kramer puke after the fright and Travis goes to the time machine to get something to clean themselves. There he glares at Eckels who managed to find his way. When they return to the time machine, Travis angrily shouts to Eckels for almost killing them and threatens to leave him here. Lesperance tries to reason with him but Travis points out that they don't know anymore if things are unchanged for he stepped off of the path. To punish him, Travis makes him remove the bullets from the corpse which is brimming with scavengers. A frightened Eckels returns bloodstained up to the elbows and a bunch of bullets in each hand. 

     They activate the time machine to return home. Travis threatens Eckels to kill him himself if the future is destroyed. When they return, the man behind the desk welcomes them. Travis gazes around and admits maybe nothing happened. Yet Eckels feels things aren't the same, he gazes and feels as if his senses shout that something in the particles of air, the city beyond the walls, the people are a completely different world. Then he gazes at the sign in the entrance where now the words are mispelled. Feebly he asks to the man in the desk who won the elections to which he replies as if obvious that Deutscher won, not that weakling Keith.

     Eckels turns pale, sits and searches in the mud in the sole of his boots. There he discovers a very beautiful and very dead butterfly. He asks desperately if maybe they can do something, return it, revive it somehow. Travis shouts furiously and loads his gun. Eckels closes his eyes and then a sound of thunder.

     Now that's all. I like another of his short stories about a girl from Earth who lives in Jupiter where only once a lot of years the rains stops and reveals the sun. If anyone knows how its called I would be glad if someone can tell me.

     Well, soon I will comment on Dracula. Almost finish the book.

     Have a nice day!