The Sun,--it was no longer our light, evenly diffused over the
mirror surface of the pavements; it seemed an accumulation of living
fragments, of incessantly oscillating, dizzy spots which blinded
the eyes. And the trees! Like candles rising into the very sky,
or like spiders which squatted upon the earth, supported by their
clumsy paws, or like mute green fountains. And all this was moving,
jumping, rustling. Under my feet some strange little ball was
crawling.... I stood as though rooted to the ground. I was unable to
take a step because under my foot there was not an even plane, but
(imagine!), something disgustingly soft, yielding, living, springy,
green!...
I was dazed; I was strangled,--yes, strangled; it is the best word
to express my state. I stood holding fast with both hands to a
swinging branch.
"It is nothing. It is all right. It is natural,--for the first time.
It will pass. Courage!"
At I-330's side bouncing dizzily on a green net,--someone's thinnest
profile, cut out of paper. No, not "someone's." I recognized him. I
remembered. It was the doctor. I understood everything very clearly.
I realized that they both caught me beneath the arms and laughingly
dragged me forward. My legs twisted and glided.... Terrible noise,
cawing, stumps, yelling, branches, tree-trunks, wings, leaves,
whistling....
The trees ran apart. A bright clearing. In the clearing, people, or
perhaps to be more exact, _beings_. Now comes the most difficult
part to describe for _this_ was beyond any bounds of probability. It
is clear to me now why I-330 was stubbornly silent about it before;
I should not have believed it, should not have believed even her. It
is even possible that tomorrow I shall not believe myself, shall not
believe my own description in these pages.
In the clearing, around a naked, skull-like rock,--a noisy crowd
of three or four hundred ... people. Well, let's call them people.
I find it difficult to coin new words. Just as on the stands
you recognize in the general accumulation of faces only those
which are familiar to you, so at first I recognized only our
grayish-blue unifs. But one second later and I saw distinctly and
clearly among the unifs dark, red, golden, black, brown and white
humans--apparently they were humans. None of them had any clothes
on, and their bodies were covered with short, glistening hair, like
that which may be seen on the stuffed horse in the Prehistoric
Museum. But their females had faces exactly, yes exactly, like
the faces of our women: tender, rosy and not overgrown with hair.
Also their breasts were free of hair, firm breasts of wonderful
geometrical form. As to the males, only a part of their faces were
free from hair, like our ancestors', and the organs of reproduction,
similar to ours.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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