"John Varley - Anthology - Super Heroes - Various Authors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Varley John)

had never been used. They were in sets. From Germany there were a dozen
portraits of Hitler, each a different color. From Africa there were sets of
wild animals. There were sets from places called Norge, Espana, Helvetia,
Suomi, and Sverige, places I couldn't find on any of my world maps.
 These were wonderful stamps. They put the others to shame. I simply
couldn't believe my luck, that the LSC had sent them to me, for FREE!!!!
Of course, there was the matter of the price printed in the corner of each
little glassine envelope.
I wish I could remember all the pro and con arguments I used on myself
during the next week. I wouldn't put them down hereтАФthey would fill a
whole book that would keep Talmudic scholars busy for decades. I just wish
I could remember. An exercise in sophistry of that magnitude is worth
remembering.
In the end, it came down to this: I was pretty sure that some money was
expected of me for these stamps, "on approval," whatever that meant. And: I
was damn sure I was never sending them back. Since I didn't have the money
to pay for them, some other arrangement would have to be made. That
arrangement turned out to be that I would simply hold on to the stamps. For
the verb "hold on to," you may substitute "steal." I don't mind.
I'd never stolen anything before, as far as I can remember. I was amazed at
how little it seemed to affect my life. Nobody pointed at me and shouted
"Thief! Thief!" I didn't sleep badly. No little worm of conscience ever
gnawed at me. Hell, I hadn't asked for the damn stamps.
So things were going well, and I was even considering sending off to
another stamp company, this one in Pennsylvania, for their Giant Grab Bag
of Five thousand stamps for only 490. I hardly ever thought of the Littleton
Stamp Company. What were they going to do? Send a bunch of thugs
around to my house to break my legs if I didn't pay up? Ha ha.
That's when the siege began. The first shot was a "simple
John Varley
brown envelope in the mailbox. I was only a little curious about it,
wondering if it might contain more free stamps, ha ha. It didn't. It was
crammed with fliers and catalogs telling me how I might purchase even
more wonderful stamps than the ones I already had, some of them for prices
that made me sweat just to look at them. And, oh, by the way, we still
haven't received payment for the stamps on approval we recently sent you.
We're happy that you liked them, of course, but you are now thirty days
overdue. We're sure this is just an oversight. Ha ha.
(I have tried and tried and tried, and I cannot remember the amount the
LSC was dunning me for. Considering the fact that it was the central
number of my life for almost a year, I find this odd. I must have simply
blanked it out, like one forgets the events surrounding a horrific traffic
accident. A guess? I'd say it was around twenty dollars. Pocket change
today, of course. Then? Do you remember when Coke vending machines
went from 50 to 60? It was right about that time. We went to the movies for
a quarter. Don't ask me what a loaf of bread cost because it was another ten
years before I'd ever buy a loaf of bread. Cokes and Saturday matinees were
about the extent of my economic knowledge. But let's say it was twenty
dollars. Do you have any idea of how much twenty dollars was in those
pre-inflation days? Well, it was a fortune, that's what it was. You could