Thirty Strange StoriesWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Science
Thirty Strange Stories
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Fantasy fiction, English; Science fiction, English; 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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