The Plattner Story, and OthersWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Science
The Plattner Story, and Others
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories, English
This extinction of our world, when the green sun of this other universe
rose, is a curious point upon which Plattner insists. During the
Other-World night it is difficult to move about, on account of the
vividness with which the things of this world are visible. It becomes a
riddle to explain why, if this is the case, we in this world catch no
glimpse of the Other-World. It is due, perhaps, to the comparatively
vivid illumination of this world of ours. Plattner describes the
midday of the Other-World, at its brightest, as not being nearly so
bright as this world at full moon, while its night is profoundly
black. Consequently, the amount of light, even in an ordinary dark
room, is sufficient to render the things of the Other-World invisible,
on the same principle that faint phosphorescence is only visible in
the profoundest darkness. I have tried, since he told me his story,
to see something of the Other-World by sitting for a long space in a
photographer's dark room at night. I have certainly seen indistinctly
the form of greenish slopes and rocks, but only, I must admit, very
indistinctly indeed. The reader may possibly be more successful.
Plattner tells me that since his return he has dreamt and seen and
recognised places in the Other-World, but this is probably due to his
memory of these scenes. It seems quite possible that people with
unusually keen eyesight may occasionally catch a glimpse of this
strange Other-World about us.
However, this is a digression. As the green sun rose, a long street
of black buildings became perceptible, though only darkly and
indistinctly, in the gorge, and, after some hesitation, Plattner began
to clamber down the precipitous descent towards them. The descent was
long and exceedingly tedious, being so not only by the extraordinary
steepness, but also by reason of the looseness of the boulders
with which the whole face of the hill was strewn. The noise of his
descent--now and then his heels struck fire from the rocks--seemed
now the only sound in the universe, for the beating of the bell had
ceased. As he drew nearer, he perceived that the various edifices had
a singular resemblance to tombs and mausoleums and monuments, saving
only that they were all uniformly black instead of being white, as
most sepulchres are. And then he saw, crowding out of the largest
building, very much as people disperse from church, a number of pallid,
rounded, pale-green figures. These dispersed in several directions
about the broad street of the place, some going through side alleys and
reappearing upon the steepness of the hill, others entering some of the
small black buildings which lined the way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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