"But if I see others dancing may I not join them?" I inquired.
"You won't see anybody dancing on Broadway," she replied, a trifle
snubbily, but I resolved to escape from her as soon as possible and find
out for myself.
I shall never forget my shock on discovering the sky blue instead of the
color it should be, but soon my eyes became accustomed to the change. In
fact, I have not since that first moment been able to conceive of the
sky as anything but blue. And the city?--Oh, my dear, my dear, I never
expected to encounter anything so much out of key with the essential
euphonies. Of course I have not traveled very much, but I should say
there is nothing in the universe like a street they call
Broadway--unless it be upon the lesser satellite of Mars, where the poor
people are so awfully cramped for space. When I suggested this to Ooma
she laughed and called me clever, for it seems there is a tradition that
a mob of meddling Martians once stopped on Earth long enough to give
the foolish humans false ideas about architecture and many other
matters. But I soon forgot everything in my interest in the people. Such
a poor puzzle-headed lot they are. One's heart goes out to them at once
as they push and jostle one another this way and that, with no
conceivable object other than to get anywhere but where they are in the
shortest time possible. One longs to help them; to call a halt upon
their senseless struggles; to reason with them and explain how all the
psychic force they waste might, if exerted in constructive thought,
bring everything they wish to pass. Mrs. Bloomer assures me they only
ridicule those who venture to interfere, and it will take at least a
Saturn century to so much as start them in the right direction. Our
settlement is their only hope, she says, and even we can help them only
indirectly.
Not long ago, it appears, they had to choose a King or Mayor, or
whatever the creature is called who executes their silly laws, and our
people so manipulated the election that the choice fell on one of us.
I thought this a really good idea, and supposed, of course, we must at
once have set about demonstrating how a planet should be managed. But
no! that was not our system, if you please. Instead of making proper
laws our agent misbehaved himself in every way the committee could
suggest, until at last the humans rose against him and put one of
themselves in his place, and after that things went just a little better
than before. This is the only way in which they can be taught. But, dear
me, isn't it tedious?
Of course, I soon grew anxious for an exchange of thought with almost
anyone, but it was a long while before I discovered a single person who
was not in a violent hurry. At last, however, we came upon a human drawn
apart a little from the throng, who stood with folded arms, engaged
apparently in lofty meditation. His countenance was amiable, although a
little red.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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