Short Fiction quotes

Mary sat quietly and watched the handsome man’s legs blown off; watched further as the great ship began to crumple and break into small pieces in the middle of the blazing night.

She fidgeted slightly as the men and the parts of the men came floating dreamily through the wreckage out into the awful silence. And when the meteorite shower came upon the men, gouging holes through everything, tearing flesh and ripping bones, Mary closed her eyes.

“Little girl,” said the handsome man, “do you actually mean to tell us that you prefer that body?”

“I like it. It’s⁠—hard to explain, but it’s me and that’s what I like. Not the looks, maybe, but the me.”

“You can look in the mirror and see yourself, then look at—well, at your mother and be content?”

She read until her eyes burned and her eyes burned until she could read no more.

Then Mary went to sleep, softly and without realizing it, for the first time.

But the sleep was not peaceful.

Mary walked past the people, Mother and the men in back of her, following. She looked at the people. The people were beautiful, perfect, without a single flaw.

All the beautiful people. All the ugly people, staring out from bodies that were not theirs.

Walking on legs that had been made for them, laughing with manufactured voices, gesturing with shaped and fashioned arms.

Flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone, all hers, made by no one, built by herself or someone she did not know. Uneven kneecaps, making two grinning cherubs when they bent, and the old familiar rubbing together of fat inner thighs.

Fat, unshapely, unsystematic Mary. But Mary.

Of course. Of course! This was what Daddy meant, what Grandpa and the books meant. What they would know if they would read the books or hear the words, the good, reasonable words, the words that signified more, much more, than any of this.

“Oh, you mean the castoffs. The usual. I don’t know exactly. Somebody takes care of it.”

“I want me!” Mary cried. “Not that!” She pointed at the screen.

Her chair was wheeled into a semi-dark room. She was naked now, and the men lifted her to a table. The surface was like glass, black, filmed. A big machine hung above.

The big machine hurtling downward.

“Where will I find me?” Mary screamed, “when it’s all over?”

A long needle slid into rough flesh and the beautiful people gathered around the table.

Captain Webber saluted tiredly and walked back down the long corridor. He paused as the machines suddenly roared more life, rubbed his cheek and went into the small room.

“Cows,” said Captain Webber bracing himself.

The fiery leg fell into the cool air, heating it, causing it to smoke; it burnt into the green grass and licked a craterous hole.

Captain Webber glanced at the motionless people. “Why not?” Then he shouted, “What is this place? Where am I?”

“Captain, you are in a cemetery.”

“Thanks, sir. When we all got back and Friden didn’t know where you’d gone, well, we got worried. Then we heard you shouting.”

Max Kaplan turned to face his hosts. He looked quite a bit older than usual: the grin wasn’t boyish now.

“Dear folkses,” he said, “when I die, I don’t want to see any full bottles around.”

“Oh, ha-ha, that’s just so very deliriously funny,” Mrs. Ritchie said. She was massaging her temples.

“Wait a second now. Don’t get carried away. This same poor dumb kid is the boy who killed George Sanderson in cold blood and then raped his wife, not too very long ago. If I recall, your word for him then was Brutal Murderer.”

“That was the paper. This is you and me.”

“Well, get that accusatory look off your face. Murder and rape—those are stiff raps to beat, pal.”