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********************************************************Author: Orson Scott CardTitle: MissedOriginal copyright year: 1998Genre: Short StoryComments:Source:Date of e-text:Prepared by:********************************************************MissedMissedBy Orson Scott CardTim Bushey was no athlete, and if at thirty-one middle age wasn'tthere yet, it was coming, he could feel its fingers on his spine. Sowhen he did his hour of exercise a day, he didn't push himself,didn't pound his way through the miles, didn't stress his knees.Often he relaxed into a brisk walk so he could look around and seethe neighborhoods he was passing through.In winter he walked in mid-afternoon, the warmest time of the day.In summer he was up before dawn, walking before the air got as hotand wet as a crock pot. In winter he saw the school buses deliverchildren to the street corners. In summer, he saw the papers gettingdelivered.So it was five-thirty on a hot summer morning when he saw thepaperboy on a bicycle, pedaling over the railroad tracks and upYanceyville Road toward Glenside. Most of the people deliveringpapers worked out of cars, pitching the papers out the far window.But there were a few kids on bikes here and there. So what was soodd about him that Tim couldn't keep his eyes off the kid?He noticed a couple of things as the kid chugged up the hill. First,he wasn't on a mountain bike or a street racer. It wasn't even oneof those banana-seat bikes that were still popular when Tim was akid. He was riding one of those stodgy old one-speed bikes that werethe cycling equivalent of a '55 Buick, rounded and lumpy and heavyas a burden of sin. Yet the bike looked brand-new.And the boy himself was strange, wearing blue jeans with the cuffsrolled up and a short-sleeved shirt in a print that looked like ...no, it absolutely was. The kid was wearing clothes straight out of"Leave It to Beaver." And his hair had that tapered buzzcut thatleft just one little wave to be combed up off the forehead in front.It was like watching one of those out-of-date educational films ingrade school. This kid was clearly caught in a time warp.Still, it wouldn't have turned Tim out of his planned route -- thecircuit of Elm, Pisgah Church, Yanceyville, and Cone -- if it hadn'tbeen for the bag of papers saddled over the rack on the back of thebike. Printed on the canvas it said, "The Greensboro Daily News."Now, if there was one thing Tim was sure of, it was the fact thatGreensboro was a one-newspaper town, unless you counted the weekly"Rhinoceros Times," and sure, maybe somebody had clung to an oldcanvas paper delivery bag with the "Daily News" logo -- but that baglooked new.It's not as if Tim had any schedule to keep, any urgentappointments. So he turned around and jogged after the kid, and whenthe brand-new ancient bicycle turned right on Glenside, Tim was notall that far behind him. He lost sight of him after Glenside madeits sweeping left turn to the north, but Tim was still close enoughto hear, in the still morning air, the faint sound of a rolled-upnewspaper hitting the gravel of a country driveway.He found the driveway on the inside of a leftward curve. Thestreetlight showed the paper lying there, but Tim couldn't see themasthead or even the headline without jogging onto the gravel, hisshoes making such a racket that he half-expected to see lights go oninside the house.He bent over and looked. The rubber band had broken and the paperhad unrolled itself, so now it lay flat in the driveway. Dominatingthe front page was a familiar picture. The headline under it said:Babe Ruth, Baseball'sHome Run King, DiesCancer of Throat Claims LifeOf Noted Major League StarI thought he died years ago, Tim thought.Then he noticed another headline:Inflation Curb Signed By TrumanPresident Says Bill InadequateTruman? Tim looked at the masthead. It wasn't the "News and Record,"it was the "Greensboro Daily News." And under the masthead it said:Tuesday Morning, August 17, 1948 ... price: five cents.What kind of joke was this, and who was it being played on? Not Tim-- nobody could have known he'd come down Yanceyville Road today, orthat he'd follow the paperboy to this driveway.A footstep on gravel. Tim looked up. An old woman stood at the headof the driveway, gazing at him. Tim stood, blushing, caught. Shesaid nothing."Sorry," said Tim. "I didn't open it, the rubber band must havebroken when it hit the gravel, I --"He looked down, meant to reach down, pick up the paper, carry it toher. But there was no paper there. Nothing. Right at his feet, wherehe had just seen the face of George Herman "Babe" Ruth, there wasonly gravel and moist dirt and dewy grass.He looked at the woman again. Still she said nothing."I ..." Tim couldn't think of a thing to say. Good morning, ma'am.I've been hallucinating on your driveway. Have a nice day. "Look,I'm sorry."She smiled faintly. "That's OK. I never get it into the houseanymore these days."Then she walked back onto the porch and into the house, leaving himalone on the driveway.It was stupid, but Tim couldn't help looking around for a momentjust to see where the paper might have gone. It had seemed so real.But real things don't just disappear.He couldn't linger in the driveway any longer. An elderly womanmight easily get frightened at having a stranger on her property inthe wee hours and call the police. Tim walked back to the road andheaded back the way he had come. Only he couldn't walk, he had tobreak into a jog and then into a run, until it was a headlong gallopdown the hill and around the curve toward Yanceyville Road.Why was he so afraid? The only explanation was that he hadhallucinated it, and it wasn't as if you could run away fromhallucinations. You carried those around in your own head. And theywere nothing new to him. He'd been living on the edge of madnessevery since the accident. That's why he didn't go to work, didn'teven have a job anymore -- the compassionate leave had long sinceexpired, replaced by a vague promise of "come back anytime, you knowthere's always a job here for you."But he couldn't go back to work, could only leave the house to gojogging or to the grocery store or an occasional visit to Atticus toget something to read, and even then in the back of his mind hedidn't really care about his errand, he was only leaving becausewhen he came back, he'd see things.One of Diana's toys would be in a different place. Not just inchesfrom where it had been, but in a different room. As if she'd pickedup her stuffed Elmo in the family room and carried it into thekitchen and dropped it right there on the floor because Selena hadpicked her up and put her in the high chair for lunch and yes, therewere the child-size spoon, the Tupperware glass, the Sesame Streetplate, freshly rinsed and set beside the sink and still wet.Only it wasn't really a hallucination, was it? Because the toy wasreal enough, and the dishes. He would pick up the toy and put itaway. He would slip the dishes into the dishwasher, put in the soap,close the door. He would be very, very certain that he had not setthe delay timer on the dishwasher. All he did was close the door,that's all.And then later in the day he'd go to the bathroom or walk out to getthe mail and when he came back in the kitchen the dishwasher wouldbe running. He could open the door and the dishes would be clean,the steam would fog his glasses, the heat would wash over him, andhe knew that couldn't be a hallucination. Could it?Somehow when he loaded the dishwasher he must have turned on thetimer even though he thought he was careful not to. Somehow beforehis walk or his errand he must have picked up Diana's Elmo anddropped it in the kitchen and taken out the toddler dishes andrinsed them and set them by the sink. Only he hallucinated not doingany such thing.Tim was no psychologist, but he didn't need to pay a shrink to tellh... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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********************************************************Author: Orson Scott CardTitle: MissedOriginal copyright year: 1998Genre: Short StoryComments:Source:Date of e-text:Prepared by:********************************************************MissedMissedBy Orson Scott CardTim Bushey was no athlete, and if at thirty-one middle age wasn'tthere yet, it was coming, he could feel its fingers on his spine. Sowhen he did his hour of exercise a day, he didn't push himself,didn't pound his way through the miles, didn't stress his knees.Often he relaxed into a brisk walk so he could look around and seethe neighborhoods he was passing through.In winter he walked in mid-afternoon, the warmest time of the day.In summer he was up before dawn, walking before the air got as hotand wet as a crock pot. In winter he saw the school buses deliverchildren to the street corners. In summer, he saw the papers gettingdelivered.So it was five-thirty on a hot summer morning when he saw thepaperboy on a bicycle, pedaling over the railroad tracks and upYanceyville Road toward Glenside. Most of the people deliveringpapers worked out of cars, pitching the papers out the far window.But there were a few kids on bikes here and there. So what was soodd about him that Tim couldn't keep his eyes off the kid?He noticed a couple of things as the kid chugged up the hill. First,he wasn't on a mountain bike or a street racer. It wasn't even oneof those banana-seat bikes that were still popular when Tim was akid. He was riding one of those stodgy old one-speed bikes that werethe cycling equivalent of a '55 Buick, rounded and lumpy and heavyas a burden of sin. Yet the bike looked brand-new.And the boy himself was strange, wearing blue jeans with the cuffsrolled up and a short-sleeved shirt in a print that looked like ...no, it absolutely was. The kid was wearing clothes straight out of"Leave It to Beaver." And his hair had that tapered buzzcut thatleft just one little wave to be combed up off the forehead in front.It was like watching one of those out-of-date educational films ingrade school. This kid was clearly caught in a time warp.Still, it wouldn't have turned Tim out of his planned route -- thecircuit of Elm, Pisgah Church, Yanceyville, and Cone -- if it hadn'tbeen for the bag of papers saddled over the rack on the back of thebike. Printed on the canvas it said, "The Greensboro Daily News."Now, if there was one thing Tim was sure of, it was the fact thatGreensboro was a one-newspaper town, unless you counted the weekly"Rhinoceros Times," and sure, maybe somebody had clung to an oldcanvas paper delivery bag with the "Daily News" logo -- but that baglooked new.It's not as if Tim had any schedule to keep, any urgentappointments. So he turned around and jogged after the kid, and whenthe brand-new ancient bicycle turned right on Glenside, Tim was notall that far behind him. He lost sight of him after Glenside madeits sweeping left turn to the north, but Tim was still close enoughto hear, in the still morning air, the faint sound of a rolled-upnewspaper hitting the gravel of a country driveway.He found the driveway on the inside of a leftward curve. Thestreetlight showed the paper lying there, but Tim couldn't see themasthead or even the headline without jogging onto the gravel, hisshoes making such a racket that he half-expected to see lights go oninside the house.He bent over and looked. The rubber band had broken and the paperhad unrolled itself, so now it lay flat in the driveway. Dominatingthe front page was a familiar picture. The headline under it said:Babe Ruth, Baseball'sHome Run King, DiesCancer of Throat Claims LifeOf Noted Major League StarI thought he died years ago, Tim thought.Then he noticed another headline:Inflation Curb Signed By TrumanPresident Says Bill InadequateTruman? Tim looked at the masthead. It wasn't the "News and Record,"it was the "Greensboro Daily News." And under the masthead it said:Tuesday Morning, August 17, 1948 ... price: five cents.What kind of joke was this, and who was it being played on? Not Tim-- nobody could have known he'd come down Yanceyville Road today, orthat he'd follow the paperboy to this driveway.A footstep on gravel. Tim looked up. An old woman stood at the headof the driveway, gazing at him. Tim stood, blushing, caught. Shesaid nothing."Sorry," said Tim. "I didn't open it, the rubber band must havebroken when it hit the gravel, I --"He looked down, meant to reach down, pick up the paper, carry it toher. But there was no paper there. Nothing. Right at his feet, wherehe had just seen the face of George Herman "Babe" Ruth, there wasonly gravel and moist dirt and dewy grass.He looked at the woman again. Still she said nothing."I ..." Tim couldn't think of a thing to say. Good morning, ma'am.I've been hallucinating on your driveway. Have a nice day. "Look,I'm sorry."She smiled faintly. "That's OK. I never get it into the houseanymore these days."Then she walked back onto the porch and into the house, leaving himalone on the driveway.It was stupid, but Tim couldn't help looking around for a momentjust to see where the paper might have gone. It had seemed so real.But real things don't just disappear.He couldn't linger in the driveway any longer. An elderly womanmight easily get frightened at having a stranger on her property inthe wee hours and call the police. Tim walked back to the road andheaded back the way he had come. Only he couldn't walk, he had tobreak into a jog and then into a run, until it was a headlong gallopdown the hill and around the curve toward Yanceyville Road.Why was he so afraid? The only explanation was that he hadhallucinated it, and it wasn't as if you could run away fromhallucinations. You carried those around in your own head. And theywere nothing new to him. He'd been living on the edge of madnessevery since the accident. That's why he didn't go to work, didn'teven have a job anymore -- the compassionate leave had long sinceexpired, replaced by a vague promise of "come back anytime, you knowthere's always a job here for you."But he couldn't go back to work, could only leave the house to gojogging or to the grocery store or an occasional visit to Atticus toget something to read, and even then in the back of his mind hedidn't really care about his errand, he was only leaving becausewhen he came back, he'd see things.One of Diana's toys would be in a different place. Not just inchesfrom where it had been, but in a different room. As if she'd pickedup her stuffed Elmo in the family room and carried it into thekitchen and dropped it right there on the floor because Selena hadpicked her up and put her in the high chair for lunch and yes, therewere the child-size spoon, the Tupperware glass, the Sesame Streetplate, freshly rinsed and set beside the sink and still wet.Only it wasn't really a hallucination, was it? Because the toy wasreal enough, and the dishes. He would pick up the toy and put itaway. He would slip the dishes into the dishwasher, put in the soap,close the door. He would be very, very certain that he had not setthe delay timer on the dishwasher. All he did was close the door,that's all.And then later in the day he'd go to the bathroom or walk out to getthe mail and when he came back in the kitchen the dishwasher wouldbe running. He could open the door and the dishes would be clean,the steam would fog his glasses, the heat would wash over him, andhe knew that couldn't be a hallucination. Could it?Somehow when he loaded the dishwasher he must have turned on thetimer even though he thought he was careful not to. Somehow beforehis walk or his errand he must have picked up Diana's Elmo anddropped it in the kitchen and taken out the toddler dishes andrinsed them and set them by the sink. Only he hallucinated not doingany such thing.Tim was no psychologist, but he didn't need to pay a shrink to tellh... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]