"Barry N. Malzberg - What I Did To Blunt The Alien Invasion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Malzberg Barry N)

WHAT I DID TO BLUNT THE ALIEN INVASION

BY BARRY N. MALZBERG

1. I talked to them.
"Be reasonable," I said. "Consider the conditions here. Consider the nature of
our circumstances. We are struggling toward a kind of equivocal democracy,
equivocal poise, equivocal justice: Marx's alienation effect is only an
intermediary stage on the road to Nirvana." And so on and so forth. A modicum
of learning, a flutter of pedantry, even some scatology now and then to show the
great comic vision which, ultimately, underlies the human condition. They
nodded solemnly but did not make their position clear.

2. Carried the word to the President, to Congress, to the press as best I
could. Not through letters to the editor, not only through the vox populi
sections of the newspaper and by phone calls to the district office of our
congressman, but through the great common network of our evolving democracy,
the talk shows. "Alien invasion," I said. "Creatures from the far Centauris,
from the proximate Centauris coming in disguise to infiltrate our customs, our
cities, the interstices of our lives, disguised as fellow citizens, dogs,
horses, houseplants. Against their cunning we must be unavailing, nonetheless I
think you are entitied to know. The full story." Also small notices in the
classified sections of the local daily, not much but all I can afford. ALL
THOSE WHO ARE OF THE ALIEN INVASION PLEASE CALL (my number) OR WRITE POST
OFFICE
BOX (my post office box). I did what I could, certainly, to bring alertness to
the populace. My modest funds, my lack of true credibility, all of these were
very much against me; but nonetheless, within limits, I tried.

3. Discussed the issue with Susan. I made no attempt to hide my distress or my
growing awareness that perhaps between the loathsome, threatening presence of
the alienness and all of those circumstances which are our democratic way of
life, I stood alone. "I don't know what you're trying to tell me, George," she
said. "If the aliens are coming, why are you the only one who knows this? The
rest of us haven't heard a word."

" I don't know," I said. "How can I possibly know?" There is, after all, only
so much of an accounting one may give, and yet the woman is endlessly anding.
"Perhaps the rest of the population is narcoticized or drugged," I said.
"Perhaps it is only for me to carry the tale." And so on and so forth. Even
within the context of a difficult living situation, a situation built, I think,
upon my need to reach out to Susan, to humor her, to treat her as if she were a
sensible, rational woman and not the raving, neurotic pain that I know her to
be... even within that context, I tried to be ultimately reasonable. "You can
see why I'm somewhat preoccupied," I said. "You can understand now why you may
find me somehow abstracted on various occasions. I'm trying to work out a plan
to blunt the alien invasion. This takes all of my mental powers."

She laughed and laughed and it was at this point in our dialogues, usually
although not exclusively, that she would begin to hurl objects at me. I do not