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The Words of Guru



C. M. Kornbluth




The Words of Guru



YESTERDAY, when I was going to meet Guru in the woods a man stopped me and said: "Child, what
are you doing out at one in the morning? Does your mother know where you are? How old are you,
walking around this late?"

I looked at him, and saw that he was white-haired, so I laughed. Old men never see; in fact men hardly
see at all. Sometimes young women see part, but men rarely ever see at all. "I'm twelve on my next
birthday," I said. And then, because I would not let him live to tell people, I said, "and I'm out this late to
see Guru."

"Guru?" he asked. "Who is Guru? Some foreigner, I suppose? Bad business mixing with foreigners,
young fellow. Who is Guru?"
So I told him who Guru was, and just as he began talking about cheap magazines and fairy tales I said
one of the words that Guru taught me and he stopped talking. Because he was an old man and his joints
were stiff he didn't crumple up but fell in one piece, hitting his head on the stone. Then I went on.

Even though I'm going to be only twelve on my next birthday I know many things that old people don't.
And I remember things that other boys can't. I remember being born out of darkness, and I remember
the noises that people made about me. Then when I was two months old I began to understand that the
noises meant things like the things that were going on inside my head. I found out that I

could make the noises too, and everybody was very much surprised. "Talking!" they said, again and
again. "And so very young! Clara, what do you make of it?" Clara was my mother.

And Clara would say: "I'm sure I don't know. There never was any genius in my family, and I'm sure
there was none in Joe's." Joe

was my father.

Once Clara showed me a man I had never seen before, and told me that he was a reporter-that he
wrote things in newspapers. The reporter tried to talk to me as if I were an ordinary baby; I didn't even
answer him, but just kept looking at him until his eyes fell and he went away. Later Clara scolded me and
read me a little piece in the reporter's newspaper that was supposed to be funny-about the reporter
asking me very complicated questions and me answering with baby noises. It was not true, of course. I
didn't say a word to the reporter, and he didn't ask me even one of the questions.

I heard her read the little piece, but while I listened I was watching the slug crawling on the wall. When
Clara was finished I asked her: "What is that grey thing?"