Epistolary fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
All is well, only they shot this information file into my matrix too
fast. I'm having a hard time sorting facts and make the right decision.
Gezsltrysk, what a task!
Farewell till later.
Glmpauszn
* * * * *
Wichita, Kansas
June 13
Dear Joe:
Mnghjkl, fhfjgfhjklop phelnoprausynks. No. When I communicate with you,
I see I must avoid those complexities of procedure for which there are
no terms in this language. There is no way of describing to you in
not-language what I had to go through during the first moments of my
birth.
Now I know what difficulties you must have had with your limited
equipment. These not-people are unpredictable and strange. Their doctor
came in and weighed me again the day after my birth. Consternation
reigned when it was discovered I was ten pounds heavier. What
difference could it possibly make? Many doctors then came in to see me.
As they arrived hourly, they found me heavier and heavier. Naturally,
since I am growing. This is part of my instructions. My not-mother
(Gezsltrysk!) then burst into tears. The doctors conferred, threw up
their hands and left.
I learned the following day that the opposite component of my
not-mother, my not-father, had been away riding on some conveyance
during my birth. He was out on ... what did they call it? Oh, yes, a
bender. He did not arrive till three days after I was born.
When I heard them say that he was straightening up to come see me, I
made a special effort and grew marvelously in one afternoon. I was 36
not-world inches tall by evening. My not-father entered while I was
standing by the crib examining a syringe the doctor had left behind.
He stopped in his tracks on entering the room and seemed incapable of
speech.
Dredging into the treasury of knowledge I had come equipped with, I
produced the proper phrase for occasions of this kind in the not-world.
"Poppa," I said.
This was the first use I had made of the so-called vocal cords that
are now part of my extended matrix. The sound I emitted sounded
low-pitched, guttural and penetrating even to myself. It must have
jarred on my not-father's ears, for he turned and ran shouting from the
room.
They apprehended him on the stairs and I heard him babble something
about my being a monster and no child of his. My not-mother appeared at
the doorway and instead of being pleased at the progress of my growth,
she fell down heavily. She made a distinct _thump_ on the floor.
This brought the rest of them on the run, so I climbed out the window
and retreated across a nearby field. A prolonged search was launched,
but I eluded them. What unpredictable beings!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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