by David Klass
Worse.
How do you live in this?
Morgan lives under it. Morgan lives around it. The first rule of being a Gorm is survive at all costs.
Good first rule. What’s the second rule?
Don’t trust anyone. Here’s his tea.
He carries an old teapot over and pours me a cup of brown liquid. I notice that he doesn’t spill even a drop. Something tells me that in this parched wasteland, every molecule of moisture is precious. Next, looking proud, he uses a syringe to squirt in a little whitish paste that floats for a second on the surface of the tea and quickly dissolves. That’s the lemon substitute. Taste, please.
I try a sip. It tastes like sweetened battery acid. The truth is I’d rather eat rain forest grubs than drink this guck. But my experience with the People of the Forest in the Amazon taught me to always appear to savor the local delicacy. I take another sip and force a smile. Yum. Best tea I’ve had in many a year. Well done.
The long-armed gnome beams back at me, and it’s a surprisingly warm and chummy smile that lights up the corners of his crinkled face. He likes Morgan’s tea! On with the chat!
He pours himself a cup of tea, takes a small sip, and waits eagerly for my next conversational salvo.
Why does the burden of making all the small talk at this mad tea party fall to me? Okay, let’s see, we’ve exhausted the weather. Time to move on to politics. So, Morgan, I say, how goes the war?
He visibly tenses. Puts down his teacup so fast that he spills a bit. Starts to back away. What war?
The one between the Dark Army and the Dannites.
There’s no war. Not anymore. It’s over. And even if there still were a war, Morgan wouldn’t take sides. Let the heroes fight for the crust. Bravo. Kill, kill. Morgan’s just a little Gorm deep in his hutch, not bothering anyone, so no reason to hurt him.
Morgan retreats into a corner, places his long, trembling arms protectively over his face, and begins to alternately cringe and shiver.
6
The tea may taste toxic, but sipping it seems to have helped me recover. I feel a little stronger, and my thoughts are getting sharper.
I apparently just pressed some sort of major panic button. This Gorm has clearly lived through a titanic, hellish struggle, and he’s still scared to death.
I walk over to him and take one of his quaking hands in my own. Easy there, Morgan. No one’s going to hurt you.
He peeks out through his fingers. They’re not?
No. I promise. And you’re absolutely right. When the world goes crazy, there’s no sense in getting involved.
Morgan isn’t involved. No Gorm is involved.
I nod and smile at him reassuringly. That’s wise. So, I take it Gorms are neither Dark Army nor Dannite?
The first rule of being a Gorm is . . .
I finish it for him: Survive at all costs.
Correct. It’s much easier to survive when Morgan doesn’t take sides. Anyway, no one wants a Gorm on his side. Not pure enough for the Dannites. Not strong and ruthless enough for the Dark Army. Just a Gorm in his hutch, not bothering anyone.
Makes perfect sense, I assure him. Come, let’s sit back down and finish our tea before it gets cold.
As we walk back to our chairs I remind myself that the Gorm I ran into in Manhattan captured me and tried to turn me over to the Dark Army. She seemed to be doing it for money, rather than out of allegiance, but while Gorms may be nonaligned, that doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous.
I study Morgan carefully. He doesn’t look dangerous. He looks frightened, resourceful, long-suffering, and terribly lonely. I give him a friendly smile. Morgan, do you by any chance have any food in this charming hutch?
Sure, he says, brightening. Wurfle egesta.
Not the most appetizing name, but I hope for the best as I ask him telepathically, Are they any good?
They’re fresh. I dig them up every night. The wurfles egest them and Morgan excavates them.
Okay, break them out.
He doesn’t have to break them. They’re bite-size.
No, I mean break them out of the closet or the refrigerator and let’s eat them. I’m famished.
Morgan retreats to a corner of his hutch and pulls out a shovel. Morgan doesn’t store them in the closet. They reek. The only place to keep a wurfle egesta indoors is deep beneath the floor.
Lunch is sounding less palatable by the second. But my stomach is rumbling and I have to eat something soon. You don’t by chance have a piece of toast? I ask.
Morgan laughs. He’s already tunneled a foot down. That’s a good one. Toast. He’s very funny.
Or a banana?
A look of almost religious veneration crosses his face. Morgan has read about bananas. Genus Musa, family Musaceae. They were yellow and grew on trees, right?
Look, old fellow, have you got anything at all in the larder besides wurfle egesta?
No, but here are some fresh ones, right where Morgan buried them last night.
A stench so noxious that it is almost visible slowly permeates the hutch, spreading out like a cloud of poison gas. It is so unspeakably rancid I can’t compare it to anything I’ve ever come across, in all my travels to the ocean bottom or the dark heart of the rain forest.
Morgan hurries over and triumphantly deposits a handful of what look like immense rabbit droppings on the table. He sees my disgusted expression and grins. If he wants to eat wurfle egesta, he needs to seal his nostrils.
I think to myself that I might need to cut off my nose and my tongue, too, in order to go through with this.
Morgan demonstrates by clamping his nostrils tightly together with the fingers of his right hand while he uses his left to grab one of the odious pellets and pop it in his mouth. He chews vigorously for five seconds and then swallows and makes a strange face, like a mountain climber who’s pleased at having successfully surmounted a deadly crag, but also horrified by what he’s just done.
How is it? I ask.
Fresh, he replies. Just egested last night.
It’s hard to imagine that anything this rank could spoil over time and become even more putrid. I know what I have to do now, and it takes every bit of courage and willpower at my command. You are the beacon of hope, I remind myself. I squeeze my nostrils closed, pick up the smallest of the dark pellets, and place it on my tongue.
The taste seems to punch right down through my throat to my guts, and land a walloping haymaker to the pit of my stomach which reverberates all the way to my bowels. Gasping and retching, heaving and snorting, I somehow manage to swallow the wretched thing.
How was it? Morgan asks expectantly.
I look back at him, and wipe tears from my eyes. I make a Herculean effort to look satisfied and even pleased. Very fresh, I gasp out to him telepathically.
Morgan looks back at me, sees the tears running down my cheeks, and bursts into laughter. They’re not exactly delicious, are they?
No, I tell him, frankly they’re bloody awful.
But they do keep Morgan alive, he says, and the first rule of a Gorm is to—
I add my telepathic voice to his and we finish the line together: survive at all costs.
And as we finish it, looking miserably into each other’s eyes, we each grab another wurfle egesta, thrust it into our mouths, and commence chewing.
7
Does it hurt him?
That’s the understatement of the year 3011.
Morgan will be done soon. Please try to think of something pleasant.
I look around. Mud walls, mud ceiling, mud floor. Don’t be offended, I tell Morgan, but there’s not much in this hutch to distract me from the pain.
He doesn’t think Morgan has a light touch. He calls Morgan his friend but all he does is criticize him.
How can you act wounded when I’m the one having my shoulder sewn up by what feels like a blunt sewing machine? The acid bath was bad enough.
Morgan had to disinfect the wound before closing it.
A thous
and years of technological progress has surely produced a disinfectant that doesn’t sting. OW!
What does he mean, a thousand years of progress?
Careful, Jack. Don’t blow your cover. Nothing, I tell Morgan. It’s just an expression my mother used to use.
Morgan’s dear old mother had some nice expressions, too. “Shut your mouth, keep low, run fast, hide dark” was one of her favorites.
Sounds like you had quite a childhood.
Almost done. These stitches could sting. Morgan advises him to please try to think of something cheerful.
Help me out, Morgan. I’m in a mud hutch under a wasteland. What’s the most fun thing to do around here?
A Gorm gala. And we’re having one soon.
A party? You’re kidding me.
Morgan doesn’t kid. Here goes. Be brave.
AAAAAAHHHHH.
Three more. Two more. All done. He’s good as new.
What do you mean good as new? I’m gonna have a jagged scar there for the rest of my life. It’ll look like I was sewn up by Dr. Frankenstein during an earthquake. And what’s this about a party? I thought Gorms were timid, solitary souls, spread far apart to make themselves harder targets.
Correct. He’s starting to understand Gorms.
No offense, but you don’t sound like party animals.
Once a month, at the full moon, Gorms kick it, baby.
I stare back at gnomish old chimp-arms to see if he’s kidding, but he grins and prances around with a few dance steps that look like they went out of style during the Roman Empire. Why? I ask, truly baffled.
Everyone needs a little fun, or what’s the point?
I hear that, I tell him, thinking that I haven’t had a happy moment in a thousand years. So when is gala night?
Tonight.
You’re kidding. Where?
We have to start cleaning.
Here?
Morgan will introduce him to some very pretty Gorms. He might even get lucky and catch a snuggle.
I’m not really looking for one. There’s a girl back home.
What happens in Morgan’s hutch, stays in Morgan’s hutch. Let’s clean!
So we clean. And we mop. And we dust. And don’t ask me how a mud hutch can start to look good, but by the time we finish scraping purple fungus from the bathroom walls, the ambience is markedly improved.
Morgan wipes himself down with an old rag and puts on a brightly colored, ill-fitting, and mismatched ensemble that makes him look like a color-blind court jester. What does he think?
You’re the man, I tell him. I mean, the Gorm. But what I’m really thinking is that this party, however nutty, may be just the occasion I need to learn something valuable about the situation outside this burrow.
I take it from the few fearful comments that Morgan has let slip about the outside world that there was a war between the Dannites and the Dark Army, which terrorized everyone and wrecked the earth. If the Caretakers had won, they wouldn’t have needed to send for me. So I infer that the bad guys must be in control.
But I need to know more. Is my mom trying to rally resistance, and is my dad still languishing in Dark Army captivity? Is there anything at all that I can do to help turn the tide? Or have I traveled forward a thousand years and arrived too late? Did the sands of time that almost buried me already sift over the King and Queen of Dann?
The hutch shakes. Uh-oh. What’s that, Morgan?
Slingo! He’s always the first. That’s his ding-dong.
One by one the Gorms arrive, and Morgan ushers them down into his festive hole. As they shuck protective clothing and goggles, Morgan introduces them to me. Lowell, Mingo, Hannah, this is Morgan’s friend Jack.
More and more guests arrive. I’m soon surrounded by a dozen suspicious Gorms. They clearly don’t know what to make of me. How did he get here? they demand. What does he want? Where did he come from?
Hadley, I tell them, neglecting to mention that I’m also from a millennium in the past. What about you?
Oh, around these parts. Here and there. Near and far, they reply vaguely.
I can tell my presence makes them nervous, which isn’t surprising since the second rule of being a Gorm is don’t trust anyone. But before they can ask me too many more questions, Morgan switches on some sort of holographic device. Ghostly red, green, and blue streamers snake down from the ceiling, and colored lights whirl and flash.
Picture the weirdest costume party you’ve ever been to in your life and then turn the kaleidoscope so that every familiar feature and pattern is oddly distorted. As far as I can figure it, to be a Gorm is to be diminutive and weak, but one must also apparently be uniquely odd-looking.
There are noses as big as cucumbers and elbows that jut at right angles. There are eyes in back of heads and necks that can twist all the way around. The Gorms don’t look like the products of genetic breeding experiments to produce super-beings. They look like fearful creatures who have spent so much time running and hiding that they’ve ended up with the collective junk heap of genetics.
The music starts. I assume it’s music, though it sounds like heavy machinery malfunctioning. The Gorms start tapping their feet and circling their double-jointed necks. Pretty soon a bunch of them are dancing.
Morgan is leading a conga line, his long arms sweeping back and forth like an out-of-control skier.
They’re drinking something they call shuffle, which makes them lose control, and a hutch full of drunken Gorms is not a pretty sight. What is shuffle? I ask the female Gorm who sits down near me.
Fermented purgation, she answers with a flirtatious smile. Would he like some?
I’ll pass.
Would he like to dance?
Maybe in a few minutes, I tell her.
Flora is a very good dancer.
I’m sure she is—I mean I’m sure you are.
She can dance any dance ever invented.
I decide to try to use this conversation to find out something valuable. That’s pretty impressive, I tell her. Did you learn to dance when you were a kid?
Not much else to do, hiding in a hutch day and night.
I know what you mean, I say with a smile. The war, right? Thank God it’s over.
She looks back at me. Flora doesn’t talk about that.
Neither do I, I say. Why dwell on things you can’t change? The whole world in the grip of the Dark Army.
I’m looking into her black Gorm eyes. One is bigger than the other. Let them have it, she says telepathically. Flora is just a Gorm in her hutch, minding her business.
Absolutely right, I agree. Here, have another sip of shuffle. Say, Flora, do you think any of the Caretakers are still alive?
What? She seems alarmed. Why?
I shrug. Just curious. Those Dannites put up a hell of a fight. That queen—what’s her name? Oh yeah, Mira. She was something. Do you think she might have survived?
Flora draws away from me. Her eyes narrow. He’s asking Flora questions because he wants information.
Don’t be silly, I reply. I was just making chitchat.
She starts to tremble. He’s using Flora to find out things. He’s got an agenda. Flora doesn’t know anything. Just a lonely Gorm who came to dance her troubles away.
Then let’s dance, I say to her, standing up and holding out my hand.
She hesitates, and asks suspiciously, Really?
Absolutely. No more questions. No agenda. Do you want to dance or not? I heard you were pretty good.
Her survival instinct clashes with her desire to dance, and then Flora violates the first rule of Gormdom and takes my hand and follows me out onto the dance floor.
8
In a minute we’re spinning and twisting and Flora is indeed a really good dancer.
I, on the other hand, am not exactly known as twinkle-toes. P.J. used to always try to get me to dance with her at parties back in Hadley. I would make up excuses to avoid it. Sorry, sweetheart, don’t like this song. Sore back from wrestling.
Charley horse from football.
Now, as I dance with this Gorm, I can’t help wondering who P.J.’s dancing with in Manhattan. I bet that lacrosse player has all the moves.
I can just picture him at the Halloween party he was trying to set up in the Hamptons, sashaying over to P.J. in a cape and vampire fangs and holding out a hand to her . . .
From imagining P.J. dancing with another guy at a costume party, I blink and find myself doing the cha-cha with Flora. She smiles back at me. He was far away.
I was trying not to step on your feet—I always look that way when I dance. But you’re terrific.
He was thinking about another girl.
Now why would you say a thing like that?
Flora can tell. It’s okay. She leans close. I’m a shape-shifter. I can be anyone he wants me to be.
I like you the way you are, I tell her. In my limited experience, that’s always a good thing to tell a woman.
No he doesn’t. Let me make him happy.
But . . . don’t you want to be you?
I will be me. And I will also be who he wants me to be. He and I both get what we want. Trust Flora. Think back to that girl he was remembering a few seconds ago.
I flash back to P.J., but I don’t see her at the Halloween party dancing with the lacrosse player. I see her the way she looked when I took her to our junior prom. She was upstairs, dressing, and I was in the living room, talking to her dad. I heard footsteps on the stairs and turned. There she was, walking down the stairs in a blue dress, with her eyes shining, and I caught my breath.
Open up your mind and let Flora see.
I know I shouldn’t do this. Private things should be kept private, and I have too many secrets to open my mind up during a Gorm gala.
Maybe it’s the flashing lights, maybe the pounding music. I haven’t drunk any shuffle, but I’ve smelled its fermented reek across the room. Or maybe the truth is that I miss P.J. and want her here, with me, even if it’s just a bad carbon copy. For whatever reason, I lower my telepathic screens and let the Gorm see what I’m thinking.
Oh, she’s beautiful. Flora will enjoy this.
My dancing partner’s face rearranges itself. Black Gorm eyes lighten to hazel and glint back at me mischievously. The cucumber nose shrinks in on itself to a cute pickle and turns upward. The dull mop of flaxen hair becomes long and lustrous as it darkens to a gorgeous shade of auburn. Breasts swell, stumpy legs elongate, and Flora’s frumpy outfit reconfigures itself into a form-fitting, shimmering light blue dress. It’s P.J.!