Asimov, Isaac Black W

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"Call him Henry," muttered Gonzalo.
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Henry said, "I would suggest that Mrs. Anderssen hurried in and took her seat on the couch,
an ordinary and perfectly natural action that would have attracted no attention from a group
of people engaged in dining and in conversation, even despite her red hair."
"But I would have seen her as soon as I came in," said Anderssen. "The back of the couch
only reaches a person's shoulders and Helen is a tall woman. Her hair would have blazed
out at me."
"On a chair," said Henry, "it is difficult to do anything but sit. On a couch, however, one can
lie down."
Anderssen said, "There was a man already sitting on the couch."
"Even so," said Henry. "Your wife, acting on impulse, as you say she is apt to do, reclined.
Suppose you were on a couch, and an attractive redhead, with a fine figure, dressed in a
skimpy summer costume, suddenly stretched out and placed her head in your lap; and that,
as she did so, she raised her finger imploringly to her mouth, pleading for silence. It seems
to me there would be very few men who wouldn't oblige a lady under those circumstances."
Anderssen's lips tightened, "Well -"
"You said the man was holding his magazine high, as though he were nearsighted, but
might that not be because he was holding it high enough to avoid the woman's head in his
lap? And then, in his eagerness to oblige a lady, would he not turn his head and
unnecessarily emphasize that he hadn't seen her?"
Anderssen rose. "Right! I'll go home right now and have it out with her."
"If I may suggest, sir," said Henry, "I would not do that."
"I sure will. Why not?"
"In the interest of family harmony, it might be well if you would let her have her victory. I
imagine she rather regrets it and is not likely to repeat it. You said she has been very well
behaved this last month. Isn't it enough that you know in your heart how it was done so that
you needn't feel defeated yourself? It would be her victory without your defeat and you would
have the best of both worlds."
Slowly, Anderssen sat down and, amid a light patter of applause from the Black Widowers,
said, "You may be right, Henry."
"I think I am," said Henry.
AFTERWORD
Actually, I dreamed this one.
I don't often remember my dreams since, actually, I attach no importance to them whatever.
(In this, I differ from my dear wife, Janet, who is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and
considers them to be important guides to what makes a person tick. She may be right, of
course.)
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Anyway, even when I do remember my dreams, they seem remarkably uninteresting since
they almost never contain any element of fantasy or imagination. It's as though I use up the
entire supply in my writing business, leaving nothing over for dreams.
In one dream, however, I followed someone into a dining room and found he had
unaccountably disappeared. I was quite astonished, for, as I said, even in my dreams I don't
usually defy the laws of nature. A search through the room finally located the person I was
looking for in the place where the heroine of the preceding story had hidden.
I stared at him and said (so help me), "What a terrific idea for a Black Widowers story."
Fortunately I woke at that moment and, for once, the dream was fresh in my mind.
Thereupon I stored the notion in my waking memory and on the next available occasion, I
wrote the story and it appeared in the October 1984 issue of EQMM.
I can't help but think that if I could dream all my gimmicks, life would be a lot easier.
The Wrong House
THE GUEST at the monthly banquet of the Black Widowers frowned at the routine question
asked him by that best of all waiters, Henry.
"No," he said, vehemently. "Nothing! Nothing! - No, not even ginger ale. I'll just have a glass
of water, if you don't mind."
He turned away, disturbed. He had been introduced as Christopher Levan. He was a bit
below average height, slim, and well - dressed. His skull was mostly bald but was so well -
shaped that the condition seemed attractive rather than otherwise.
He was talking to Mario Gonzalo and returned to the thread of his conversation with an
apparent effort, saying, "The an of cartooning seems simple. I have seen books that show
you how to draw familiar shapes and forms, starting with an oval, let us say, then modifying it
in successive stages till it becomes Popeye or Snoopy or Dick Tracy. And yet how does
one decide what oval to make and what modifications to add in the first place? Besides, it
is not easy to copy. No matter how simple the steps seem to be, when I try to follow them,
the end result is distorted and amateurish." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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