Human-alien encounters -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories; Spy stories
A platoon of policemen with drawn guns was sprinting down the platform
towards me. They were followed by a yelling mob of civilians which
included hundreds of women. They swept by me. I was safe, but
shivering with fear, Excellency. I was spent. I couldn't have mustered
up a heat ray strong enough to warm the end of my nose.
I stumbled around the corner and away from that neighborhood. Then I
went into the first restaurant I saw, and gorged. After a five dollar
plank steak, three glasses of milk, one glass of beer, and apple pie a
la mode I was still ravenous; still energy-minus.
I went a block up the street, into another restaurant, and bolted down
exactly the same meal again. Strength started to flow slowly through
my veins. After one more meal in still another restaurant, my
confidence returned.
The newspapers handled the affair with amazing restraint. The facts
brought in by their reporters naturally sounded fantastic to the
editors, so they rearranged them to "make sense." The reticence of the
authorities, particularly the F.B.I., helped to convert what might
have caused a national panic into just an unusually spectacular chase
after an escaped murderer. The burning cars were laid to hooliganism
on the part of the bystanders. The people who got burned, so the
stories explained, were hurt by the gasoline explosions of the burning
cars. The mass hysteria of the women was caused by the excitement. The
papers said that the steel necktie worn by my stooge at the theatre
had to be cut off by a water-cooled electric saw. They said that
however I did it, it was a clever trick.
The next few days, Your Excellency, were the most difficult of my stay
here. I knew that the full power of not only the F.B.I., but of the
whole national government, would be concentrated to destroy me. I had
to hide--hide, and get a new start.
The money in the pockets of my borrowed suit didn't last long. I
couldn't possibly risk presenting myself as a strong man or a
magician again. I became a ditch digger and a day laborer, and finally
drifted into the professional wrestling racket. Many of the top
wrestling promoters live in Washington, D. C. I rented a little white
clapboard house with green shutters, out in the country beyond Silver
Springs, Maryland.
* * * * *
I was careful to keep myself a second-rate wrestler. This was
exasperating, Your Excellency. At any time I could have beaten three
or four of their best wrestlers simultaneously. Everything was fixed
so I won and lost when they told me to. We even practiced how we were
going to win or lose before each match. I was very obedient and very
scared.
I did everything _not_ to attract attention. I started to use the male
principle again, but so sparingly that everything looked natural.
I tried to fit into the life of the community and become an American.
I joined a Bowling League. I learned to play a game called "Canasta."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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