Dreams That Burn In The Night (22 page)

The second alien
pulled a handful of weapons out of his pouch, rummaging frantically for something at the bottom
of the pouch. He pulled out a hunk of kryptonite and threw it at the old man. They had prepared
for everything, even Superman. It passed right through him and fell to the ground.

"He must be the
Green Hornet!" said the first alien, all his ten­tacles agog at the prospect. "Or Captain Marvel!
Or all of them!"

"Well, toot hoogma
nuba!" roared Great-grandfather without much conviction. Suddenly the sky opened up and it began
rain­ing frogs.

"Nuts!" said
Great-grandfather, thoroughly disgusted with the whole business. Frogs pelted off the heads of
the aliens. They were too stunned by this sudden turn of events to even duck.

"I give it one more
try," said Great-grandfather. Great-grand­mother, who had been crouching behind her sitting rock,
poked her head up from behind the rock and looked rather dubiously at the sky. "He never learns
and he never remembers either," she muttered under her breath.

A frog bounced off
Great-grandfather's head, almost knocking him to the ground.

"And, boy, is he in
lousy shape," she added.

"I heard that,"
roared Great-grandfather, and he went into a violent coughing fit.

The second alien
began packing up his weapons meekly. "I think we just better go home and forget about the whole
invasion. I
think we better leave before
he notices we're here and does some­thing to us we'll regret. Did we ever get the wrong
planet!"

The first alien was
staring at a frog resting on his shoulder. He was scared to death to touch it. He'd heard about
warts. The frog returned his stare and then hopped off his shoulder. The alien al­most collapsed
with relief.

The sky stopped
dropping frogs.

"This ain't no
technology to be fooling with! Let's get the hell out of here! Man! Am I glad we decided to hit
the sticks first!"

"I can't understand
it. It should have worked. I can't figure out what went wrong. That curse always worked on
chickens," said Great-grandfather.

"It could have been
worse," said the first alien. "We could have landed in Cleveland."

"Or met the Lone
Ranger," added the other alien, a look of pure horror on his face.

The aliens turned
in full flight and ran to their vehicle. They jumped in, dropping weapons carelessly in their
haste to get away.

"Take a good look,"
said the first alien as he slammed the power bar into gear. "Sure doesn't look like a
super-technology, does it? I'd swear there wasn't a weapon or self-defense mecha­nism on any of
them. They'll never believe it back home." He stared at Great-grandfather with absolute terror.
Great-grand­father was looking up into the sky, still expecting the curse of Cheroboa to
materialize. "You wouldn't think . . ." said the first alien, thinking about the energy beams
passing through the old man without hurting him at all, thinking about the frogs. "No. No. You
wouldn't think . . ." He paused. "He sure . . ."

"Is in lousy shape,
ain't he?" finished the second alien.

"Yeah," said the
first alien. "I should be in such lousy shape!"

They returned to
their spaceship and left Earth as fast as they could travel. They never came back.

"You can come out
now!" yelled Great-grandmother to Great-grandson. "The crazy white men are gone."

"They are?" asked
Great-grandfather, looking disappointed. "Nuts! Just when I had the curse down pat,
too."

Great-grandmother
rolled her eyes.

Great-grandson came
out from behind a rock. Great-grandfather stared at the rock. "He's putting on weight, ain't he?
White man's school has made him fat and weak."

Great-grandmother
sighed. It had been a long day. Every day was a long day that was spent with a rascal like
Great-grand­father.

"It's time we got
some sleep," said Great-grandmother.

Great-grandfather
yawned.

Great-grandson came
up to them and looped an arm in theirs. Lifting them gently to their feet, he walked them across
the sa­cred ground to the burial rack. Tenderly, he helped them climb back onto the burial
rack.

"You're a good
great-grandson," said Great-grandmother. "Will we see you next Sunday?"

"Same time as
always," said Great-grandson.

"He's such a good
great-grandson," said Great-grandmother.

"He brings me cheap
tobacco," muttered Great-grandfather.

Great-grandmother
would have kicked him but he was already snoring.

Nothing is forever.
All things turn into what they pretend to be if they pretend hard enough. I am the lonely
molecule. Do not touch me. Speak softly, lest you wake me. Sleep is the only free­dom I know. Do
not touch me.

I am the lonely
molecule. I am the pebble too large for the sand of the beach. I tumble endlessly. The sky weeps
compas­sionately on me. I, the pebble, I bring you new songs that appear changeless and eternal.
I am erosion. I am rivers wearing down mountains.

I came to hear you
speak, a two-legged state of being, mouthing inanities that you think will live beyond you. A
female impersonator doing nightclub impressions of Abraham Lincoln. Oh, I know you think it is
lasting wisdom. Yes, I know what you think. You think anything that makes money knows what it is
doing. And you are right.

But I, the pebble,
a child of nature, would caution you that being right (and I speak from experience) once does not
mean you are right forever. When you find out what I found out (noth­ing is forever) you will
cry, yes, cry, and when the sky weeps with you, it will not go well for you. You are not a
pebble. You are builders of mountains.

And the rain of
life does not like mountains.

I, the pebble, used
to live where it was flat. Everywhere you looked, it was flat. Trees were flat. They were so flat
we called them roots. Air was flat. Foreheads were flat. Chests too. If you were flat, you had it
made. You fit in, you belonged. If you were thick, you had to watch out. You had to always be on
guard be­cause you never knew when someone would want to come along and flatten you.

I was flat myself.
Flat, but I practiced it in moderation. I had my highs and lows just like anybody else, but I
always aimed for the middle and happy flatness. If only I had dared to be different. If only I
had dared, things would be different.

In those days, I
never saw anything that hadn't been flat or was flat or wasn't about to be flat, whether it
wanted to be or not. You were either flat or you weren't at all. That's the way it was in the old
days. You had to pay attention, you had to mind your manners or someone would come along and
flatten you flatter than was fashionable.

It was possible to
be too flat. Oh yes, it really was. I had an aunt who slept in a hammock and liked poetry. What's
worse, she would even admit to it if you asked her about it. That kind of be­havior did not, of
course, go unnoticed. One day she was and the next day she wasn't. They leveled her so flat you
couldn't tell where the ground began and she left off. That's the way it was in the old days. You
couldn't fool around like people do now.

Today you can say,
"Well, roll me up and bounce me like a rubber ball," and get away with it. Today you can say,
"Help me unzip and I'll triangulate your proposition." Today you can say, "The angle of my dangle
would make it exciting if we tangled." My, how complicated life is today.

In the old days,
all you could see were the edges of other peo­ple. There were no knobs to play with, no
distracting projections to trip over. Now the collision of shapes on the fruited plain of human
anatomy is truly frightening. Not like it was. We could bump up against anybody just about
anywhere in the good old days.

Now you have to be
careful. Now you have to plan it out ex­actly. If you don't stop somewhere along the way and get
a map of the terrain, you're liable to give someone vision impairment. Or ruin their sense of
smell. So many holes these days and all those things to fill them with! It's too much for little
old me, uneducated pebble that I am.

I tell you, this
business of mountains and valleys, this sea and landmass conflict, common sense would tell anyone
that in the old days people were a lot closer together. Flat people fit together better. Would
that we had been daring enough to stay that way.

I know I complain a
little too much of things that might have been, but really, the things we go through in the name
of prog­ress! You take the time when I saw my first mountain. It was a traumatic experience. It
was nerve-racking. I spent a week after­ward running back and forth to the bathroom.

It was Tuesday. It
was the third or fourth Tuesday since the creation of the universe. I really should try to
remember exactly which Tuesday it was, but ice ages go by and you tend to forget things. The
earth was spinning, spinning. It spun and it spun and there wasn't a pebble among us who didn't
get sick from it. (This was before we had a clear idea about gravity. We had the notion for it,
mind you, just not the temperament or the patience to apply it.) You had to hold on for dear life
and try not to lose your breakfast at the same time. It was a terrible time, on that one point we
were all agreed.

Spin and spin and
spin. Lucky was the pebble who had not eaten a big breakfast. Just when we got adjusted to the
spinning, the earth began getting hotter than the very devil. You talk about hot! My little mica
particles were swelling fit to bust my shoes! It was, and this is the truth, anything but a fun
time for us. Every­thing began melting and changing igneous hats.

We pebbles were
burned up, we were melted, we ran all over the place with the smoke flying from the soles of our
igneous shoes. It was a time that would tolerate no weaklings. It soon separated the
granite from the granofels. We rushed here and
crystallized over there. We solidified here and extruded there. We upthrust here and did so many
things all at once that my poor pebble head can't keep it all straight.

Of course, we
didn't have the slightest idea what was going on. Some of us thought that the world was coming to
an end. Others insisted it was only signaling to pass and had plenty of road ahead before the
end. I even heard some speculation from some usually conservative and quite close-mouthed members
of the quartz family to the effect that the world was not ending but sim­ply turning over in its
sleep. Whatever it was, the old earth was shooting up mountains left and right and scaring the
bejesus and limestone out of us. It was keeping us hopping.

You really had to
be on your toes if you wanted to stay a peb­ble for very long. It was all you could do to keep
from becoming a mineral formation, not to mention how incredibly hard it was to keep yourself in
clean shirts. The very air was full of muck.

Volcanoes and steam
and cinders and ash and little pieces of rock we used to know socially. Why, the very air was
full of it! And the gas, let me tell you, if I had had some way to hold my nose, I would have.
The air was filling up with atmosphere at an alarming rate. Oxygen and nitrogen and carbon
dioxide and so many other gases it isn't even worth mentioning them. You couldn't even turn
around without getting gassed with something or other.

And you talk about
heartburn! I knew a mineral formation that had it so bad it broke out in geodes! It was no
picnic, let me tell you. The earth was rezoning. Just when you got used to seeing it look one
way, the crust would begin forming under you and you had to run like the very devil to keep from
becoming a part of it. I was out of breath the whole time. Nothing but run, run, run.

It was the
Precambrian age and everything was up for grabs. A pebble had to peddle his own papers. He had to
carry his own weight. He had to roll with the tide or get sedimented where he stood. It was not
an easy life by any means.

I had a friend,
rather an unpretentious sort, really the very best type of fellow under ordinary circumstances,
but a little slow. Nice but slow. He just didn't move fast enough. One minute he was flowing over
the ground in as pretty a lava flow as you please
and the next minute he's the middle section of a basalt column. Solidified. Just
like that.

Stuck up there like
that, he grew finely grained in texture and lived a quiet and unassuming life for the rest of his
days. He had become dark and heavy and the lava had filled his pockets full of augite and
plagioclase rock and his shirt was shot through with gas-bubble holes. He never got out much
after that. He just sat around home and refused to socialize. He became very set in his
ways.

Some of my other
friends had it rough too, but none had it quite so rough as an aggregate of glass grains I first
met at the Creation of the Universe Faculty Tea. They were nice chaps, as glass grains go, a
little too clannish, as most of the sand crowd al­ways are, but down deep quite decent folks when
you got to know them. They had a particularly horrifying experience. I shouldn't think I would
have survived it were it me it happened to instead of them.