The Cleft, and Other Odd Tales

by Gahan Wilson

  He fondled it, clutched it to his breast, hugged it fiercely, and then, gripping it as firmly as he could with all his might in both his tiny front feet, he kicked his way up through the whole height of the pond to the underside of a large lily pad.

  He peered carefully and cautiously out from under the pad, and when he was sure his beloved's gaze was thoroughly absorbed elsewhere, he climbed over the pad's edge and sat on its exact center. He arranged his small body carefully, folding the roundness of his legs neatly along his sides and spreading the toes of his feet in order to show off their webbing to its best advantage. Then, lifting his head just so in order that the curve of the bulge of flesh under his chin might echo exactly the swelling of his belly in the classic frog mode, he held the heart-shaped ruby up in both paws, toward her, and waited patiently, breathing tiny, anxious breaths, and gazing at her with his wide, adoring eyes.

  She turned and saw him and at first she only smiled affectionately with a slow parting of her lovely red lips at the sight of the little fat, green creature, but then a look of curiosity grew in her eyes as she noticed the heart-shaped ruby and the oddly human way he held it, and then her curiosity in turn changed to wonder when she saw the tiny golden crown which rested on the flat, green-speckled top of Frog's head.

  Very carefully, doing all as gracefully as he possibly could, Frog bent and placed the ruby on the pad before him. Then he made a formal little bow, stepped back, and waited again.

  The ruby glistened on the lily pad, looking more like a drop of liquid than a solid thing. The beloved reached out in its direction, moving gently, keeping her eyes on Frog to make sure she was not startling him, and touched the ruby cautiously with the tip of the softly curving, delicately pink nail of her forefinger. Only after she saw Frog solemnly blink his bulging, golden eyes and nod approvingly did she take hold of the ruby between her finger and thumb and lift it from the leaf's waxy surface.

  She held it up before her face, turning it as she did so, and her lovely eyes widened as she watched the sun shine through its heart-shaped redness in endlessly wonderful ways. Frog watched from his lily pad, confident that the magic would work on its own, that his salvation was approaching, that this endless time of solitude was coming to its end and that all of it had served a purpose.

  Eventually her gaze traveled slowly from the ruby to the little frog and a look of understanding crossed over her face. She took the heart-shaped jewel between her fingertips and pressed it to the center of her chest, just above the parting of her breasts, and as she and Frog hatched together, it sank gently into her flesh.

  She sat a moment longer, her fingers resting quietly over her beating heart, and then she leaned forward and gathered Frog's small body up in her sweet hands and lifted him closer and closer to the full, round swelling of the softness of her lips.

  "And this is where you wake up," sighed Doctor Neiman, making yet another note in his little book. "Always, this is where you wake up."

  Frog turned his head to the wall and felt the burning tears cascading from his bulging eyes, felt them scald his puffy cheeks, sear the whole wide gape of his lips, and tumble from him onto the disposable paper cover of the pillow on the couch.

  "Yes," he croaked. "Always."

  The Manuscript of Dr. Arness

  Before I do what I must do, I suppose it would be a good idea to leave behind an explanation. I generally detest suicide notes. They tend to be pathetic, often mawkish monuments. But then, most suicides themselves are pathetic and mawkish—the puerile resolution to a neurotic stupidity.

  I do love life. Perhaps not as passionately as some men do, or say they do, but I love it. I am not pleased at the idea of giving it up. If I could discover any reasonable alternative I would not, even now, give it up. But there is no alternative.

  My main reason for writing this is to leave behind a warning. Because I am brilliant, what I have done is brilliant, and ordinary men are hardly likely to have the requisite ingenuity to blunder into anything like my present predicament; but there are many other brilliant men in this world and some of them, even now, may be engaged in an experiment similar to my own, unaware of where it is leading them. I address myself to this elite.

  It is ironic that I have been pushed into suicide because of an attempt to prolong my life. Like most thinking individuals, I have always been galled by the tiny span allotted to us by a supposedly beneficent providence. A man has barely attained a state of mature efficiency before he finds himself advancing rapidly into his decline. It is infuriating to contemplate what a Newton or a Kepler, or a Beethoven or a Dante could have accomplished if his creative years had been extended. Imagine, to take an example, how much richer our artistic heritage would be had Cezanne been given a mere decade more of productive existence.

  The stretching out of old age has my sympathy, but not much of my interest. If I had lived to be a tottering ancient, I suppose I would be as eager for a few more blurry years as they appear to be, but I do not see any particular value for the race as a whole in the prolongation of an individual long after he has passed anything that could be described as a fully operative condition. If the present triumphs of geriatrics continue, we shall probably find ourselves wandering among vast legions of the vague elderly. I would not for the world deny them their extra years, but I cannot see that it renders the rest of us any more than a sentimental service.

  No, it is the extension of men at their working best that obsesses me. I use the word advisedly, for it is, with me, truly an obsession. Since childhood I have been consumed with this single ambition. It's quite possible that the germ of the concept first came to me wrapped in a nursery tale. In any case, it has been my driving motive for as long as I can remember.

  I am, as I said, brilliant. I am not boasting, for it isn't something I've accomplished, but merely a quality with which I was born. I did, however, make full use of it and managed to crowd a sizable amount of learning into a very short period of time, establishing, in passing, a quantity of records in various educational establishments. I felt, you see, that I was working against the clock. I wanted to cheat the time trap as much as I possibly could.

  So it was that I began the serious phase of my investigations while still a comparatively young man. Despite this initial advantage, I was in my mid-thirties before I had completed the fundamental structure of my theory, and well into my forties before I was in a position to bring it to the actual physical test.

  My technique was a radical departure from the previous approaches to the problems of aging, all of which may be satisfactorily grouped under two rough headings: the propping-up school, which employs preventive medicines, vitamins, exercises, and so on; and the patching-up school, which makes use of reparative operations, stimulants, artificial supplements or replacements to damaged organs, and the rest. My aim was to bring about a fundamental reorientation of the body's molecular structure. I intended to alter its metabolic operations by manipulating the tiny components that control it. This I accomplished by means of an electrochemical process, the details of which are given in the notebook that I shall leave behind to accompany this brief note.

  I proceeded in the classical manner, testing my theories on animals under controlled conditions, taking copious notes and records on their reactions. I began with mice, went on to guinea pigsf and worked the final experiments on a group of chimpanzees named, unromantically enough, Onef Twof and Three.

  The effect of my treatment is cumulative. It is a slow transformation, a gradual alteration of the body, working from the large to the small, so that the small can work on the large. There is no discernible change during the first phase, but after a period of time, depending on the eccentricities of the particular animal's construction, new elements become evident. Their mood becomes buoyant and their health is dramatically improved. One interesting, and unanticipated, bonus is that all congenital defects disappear. Chimpanzee Two, for example, had a slightly stunted arm that he could move only with some difficulty. After
three weeks, that arm was fully grown and completely operative. One by one, the predictions of my theory checked out, all on schedule, all completely fulfilling or exceeding expectation.

  To say that I was pleased with the results of these experiments is to profoundly understate the case. The dream of my life was proving itself before my eyes; I had achieved the power to work the miracle for which I had been born. I, myself, not some distant inheritor of theory, could become, for all intents and purposes, immortal.

  It was at this point that I erred, and the error was precipitation. But can you blame me? The years were passing, each one, it seemed, faster than the year before. Freedom from time was in my grasp; I could not resist the temptation to reach out and take it. I was guilty of undue haste, but, even now, I cannot blame myself too much.

  I began to apply my treatment to myself. As with my animals, there was no observable reaction at first, but then I became aware of a growing peace and contentment, and I saw, clearly, that I was much improved in every bodily function. I had worn thick glasses. In four weeks I dispensed with them altogether, having no further need of them. My digestion had been faulty. Now it was perfect. I could hardly believe the image in my mirror. It was like some incredible before-and-after ad in the back pages of a magazine. I positively radiated health.

  By now the lack of aging had become evident in my animals. The mice, which would have died long ago under normal conditions, were all alive and thriving. Each of the creatures was totally unaltered since its first transformation. They could be killed, of course, by any normal means, but if they were only wounded, their rate of recovery was staggering. A scalpel cut that would ordinarily take weeks to mend would heal in a matter of days. My triumph was past all belief. These few glorious days are, still, worth all the rest. Not many men taste perfect victory.

  Now I must proceed to the less happy events that followed.

  It was my habit to occasionally run my mice through mazes to determine their reaction time. At the start of the experiment, when the initial alteration was effecting itself, their increased abilities had afforded me much joy. Now, to my growing apprehension, I observed that the period of time they took to complete their chore was unmistakably graphing up. I examined them carefully. I dissected a few to see if anything had gone wrong with their internal organs. They were all in flawless condition, but still, each day, they took a little longer to find their way through the maze. In a month I discovered, to my great discomfort, that they took twice as long to find their way from the beginning to the end.

  By this time a similar phenomenon had begun to manifest itself in my guinea pigs, and even in One, Two, and Three. There was nothing, not the slightest thing, wrong with any of them except that they needed more and more time to accomplish any task.

  In another month, the condition of my mice had become positively grotesque. At their peak they had averaged about a minute and a half to complete their trek through the maze; now they all required approximately two hours. It was not that they had become sluggish, in the ordinary sense of the word. They did not lie down or take any periods of rest at all. They worked at their task steadily, even intelligently, but they lingered agonizingly over each and every move. It was the same with all their activities. They ate, they played, they fought and made love, but one's patience was worn thin watching them at any of it, because it took them such a damnably long time to move from one part of it to the next. I can only compare the effect to that of a slow-motion movie.

  This slowness, if I may use a contradiction in terms, accelerated. Each of the various groups of animals proceeded in proportion to its own metabolism. By the time the guinea pigs had achieved the condition I have just described in regard to the mice, the mice were moving so slowly that it required an extended period of observation to determine whether they were moving at all. I attached an ink marker to the tail of one mouse so that the creature would leave a thin black line behind itself as it moved. After one full week, the tiny trail was only one and one quarter inches long. Yet all of my mice remained in the best of health. Their coats were still glossy, and their eyes sparkled with undimmed enthusiasm. The only trouble was that to a casual observer in my laboratory they would have appeared to be absolutely inert.

  As the reader will have surmised, I was not exempt from this slowing process. Subjectively, I was not aware of it at all, but by timing my actions against an external check, such as the rotations of my watch's hands, I could see only too well that my movements had become increasingly slower. The alteration continued in the same snowballing fashion as with my pets, and now I no longer need anything as delicate as a clock to remind myself of my condition. I cannot strike a match fast enough to ignite it. By counting the sunrises and sunsets through the window, I determined that it took me nine days to arrange my typewriter so that I could type this note.

  I determined to end my life after what might seem a trivial enough incident. I gave Three a banana and observed that it took him an entire afternoon to peel it. He looked so contented, so blissfully unaware of his snail-paced condition, that I began to laugh at him. My laughter became hysterical, and I ended by crying. I have no idea how long ago this happened, as I have lost all track of time, ordinary time. It has become a foreign thing to me.

  I can see no point in becoming a comical object. One, Two, and Three now look like so many stuffed monkeys and I, without any doubt, would also come to resemble a particularly successful example of the taxidermist's art, were I to allow myself to survive. I have no intention of doing so. I shall now take the gun, which I have placed beside my typewriter, and blow out my brains with it. I wonder how long it will take me to do it? As I said, the situation is not without iron

  Thus ends the manuscript of Doctor Arness. The last page remains, as you can see for yourself in the exhibit rolled in the platen of his typewriter. The placement of the typewriter in relation to the gun, the table, the chair, and to Doctor Arness himself is exactly the same as when he and the objects were discovered in his laboratory. Although Doctor Arness appears to be—to use his tragic description— "stuffed," he is not. He is alive, in good health, and he is moving. His index finger, even now, is actually approaching the final "y” in "irony,” although at a speed that can be measured only with the most delicate of instruments. Doctor Arness is now 250 years old.

  The animals referred to in his manuscript are also all alive and well, and may be seen in the Hall of Mammals. Attractive models of chimpanzees One, Two, and Three have been created, and they are available, in various sizes, at the Museum Curio Shop.

  Hansel and Grettel

  Once upon a time there was a simply adorable brother and sister who were so lovely that it is almost impossible to describe how really lovely they were, but I shall try, my dears, I shall do my very best.

  Of course the one you would notice first would always be the sister, whose name was Grettel, my sweets. She was so very beautiful that when she entered a room all heads would turn in her direction—absolutely all of them without exception—and their eyes would follow her as she made her way to the very best table in the restaurant or the finest seat in the theater, and the men would do their best to try and hide it from the women they were with how furious they were to be with those women instead of being with Grettel. And the women would try to hide it from the men they were with that they knew their men felt that way and would wish deep down in the darkest depths of their hearts—oh my God how they would wish!—that they were as beautiful as Grettel and that the men they were with were dead and buried and out of the way so that they could enter a room as she did and have all the new, the fresh men, gaze at them with that much yearning and desire.

  But then the women would notice Hansel.

  My darlings, it was a quiet thing that Hansel did, getting this second notice, but oh what a noticing it was, for when they saw Hansel the women forgot all about Grettel and the men they were with, and all that was in their pretty little heads were dreams of themselves running far away with H
ansel, to Hawaii, perhaps, to any place where the men they were with would be distant, forgotten creatures, someplace where they and Hansel could and would spend twenty-four hours a day, day after day, making love to one another.

  And the men they were with would shift in their chairs and glance sidewise with squinting eyes at their women from behind their menus or their theater programs and when they saw the rapt expression on their faces as they gazed, dreaming, at Hansel, they would glare unseeing at their menus or theater programs while they plotted how to kill the women they were with very slowly so that they would suffer excruciating agonies before they finally died.

  But the sad thing about it was, you know, the real pity was that Hansel and Grettel never did a thing about it. All those hopeful, yearning men and women, and they never did a thing about a single one of them. Not ever. Not once.

  They seemed totally unaware of all those yearning looks, did handsome Hansel and lovely Grettel, as they entered those rooms or restaurants or theaters. They smiled and glowed and shone and sparkled and flowed gracefully before all those adoring gazes without appearing to notice a single aching glance or hear a solitary heartfelt sigh.

  But of course they did notice them, my dears, they noticed every one of them. They lapped them up. They would have died without them.

  Still one must have sympathy for Hansel and Grettel as the story behind them was rather tragic, rather sad. Their parents had cast them out, you see. Not once, but twice. The first time is still quite a well kept secret, my dears, a very well kept secret. The very, very few who know the real truth about the first time never ever speak of it in pubic where reporters and people like that might overhear, and of course you darlings won't say a word about it, now, will you? Of course you won't because you know that would make me very sad and very angry. Very angry. And you wouldn't want me angry at you, would you, my dears? No, of course you wouldn't.