Science fiction; Short stories; Time travel -- Fiction
He looked steadily at them and his eyes spoke to them ...
_Life is greater than you know. If you could travel in Time, and see how
great is man's courage--if you could see all of his triumphs over
despair and grief and pain--you would know that there is nothing to
fear! Nothing at all!_
Joe rose from the table, suddenly calm, quiet.
"Come on," he said quietly. "We're getting out of here right now. My
car's outside and if Mike tries to stop us I'll fix him!"
The boy and the girl walked toward the door together, a young and
extremely pretty girl and a boy grown suddenly to the full stature of a
man.
Rather regretfully Moonson watched them go. As they reached the door the
girl turned and smiled and the boy paused too--and they both smiled
suddenly at the man in the bathing trunks.
Then they were gone.
Moonson got up as they disappeared, left the tavern.
It was dark when he reached the cabin. He was dog-tired, and when he saw
the seated man through the lighted window a great longing for
companionship came upon him.
He forgot that he couldn't talk to the man, forgot the language
difficulty completely. But before this insurmountable element occurred
to him he was inside the cabin.
Once there he saw that the problem solved itself--the man was a writer
and he had been drinking steadily for hours. So the man did all of the
talking, not wanting or waiting for an answer.
A youngish, handsome man he was, with graying temples and keenly
observant eyes. The instant he saw Moonson he started to talk.
"Welcome, stranger," he said. "Been taking a dip in the ocean, eh? Can't
say I'd enjoy it, this late in the season!"
Moonson was afraid at first that his silence might discourage the
writer, but he did not know writers ...
"It's good to have someone to talk to," the writer went on. "I've been
sitting here all day trying to write. I'll tell you something you may
not know--you can go to the finest hotels, and you can open case after
case of the finest wine, and you still can't get started sometimes."
The writer's face seemed suddenly to age. Fear came into his eyes and he
raised the bottle to his lips, faced away from his guest as he drank as
if ashamed of what he must do to escape despair every time he faced his
fear.
He was trying to write himself back into fame. His greatest moment had
come years before when his golden pen had glorified a generation of
madcaps.
For one deathless moment his genius had carried him to the heights, and
a white blaze of publicity had given him a halo of glory. Later had come
lean and bitter years until finally his reputation dwindled like a
gutted candle in a wintry room at midnight.
He could still write but now fear and remorse walked with him and would
give him no peace. He was cruelly afraid most of the time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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