Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories

by Terry Bisson

  “I don’t know about weird,” said Shorty. “Something definitely feels funny.”

  “Let’s get on with this,” I said. I handed Stretch the painting and he pushed it through the slot, and Shorty and I lived happily ever after. For a while. More or less . . .

  But you’ve seen I Love Lucy.

  The Toxic Donut

  HI, I’M RON, the Host’s Chief Administrative Assistant, but you can just call me Ron. Let me begin, at the risk of seeming weird, by saying congratulations.

  Of course I know. I’ve been doing this show every year for six years; how could I not know? But look at it this way, Kim—do you mind if I call you Kim? You have been chosen to represent all humanity for one evening. All the birds and beasts too. The worms and the butterflies. The fishes of the sea. The lilies of the field. You are, for one half hour tonight, the representative of all life on the planet. Hell, all life in the Universe, as far as we know. That calls for congratulations, doesn’t it? You have a right to be proud. And your family, too.

  Did you, I mean do you have a family? How nice. Well, we all know what they’ll be watching tonight, don’t we? Of course, I know, everybody watches it anyway. More than watch the Academy Awards. Eight to ten points more. A point is about thirteen million people these days, did you know that?

  Okay. Anyway. Have you ever been on TV before? “Long shot at a ball game”—that’s good. I loved Bill Murray too. God rest his soul. Anyway. Okay. TV is ninety-nine percent preparation, especially live TV. So if you’ll walk over here with me, let’s take this opportunity to run through the steps for our lighting people, as well as yourself; so you will be able to concentrate on the Event itself.

  After all, it’s your night.

  Watch your step. Lots of wires.

  Okay. We call this Stage Left. At 8:59, one minute to Airtime, one of the Girls will bring you out. Over there, in the little green outfits. What? Since you’re a woman it should be guys in bikinis? I get it, a joke. You have quite a sense of humor, Kim. Do you mind if I call you Kim?

  Right, we did.

  Anyway. Okay. You’ll stand here. Toes on that mark. Don’t worry, the cameras won’t linger on you, not yet. You’ll just be part of the scene at the beginning. There will be one song from the International Children’s Rainbow Chorus. “Here Comes the Sun,” I think. All you have to do is stand here and look pretty. Dignified, then. Whatever. You’re the first woman in two years, by the way; the last two Consumers were men.

  I don’t know why, Consumers is just what we call them; I mean, call you. What would you want us to call you?

  That’s another joke, right? Whatever.

  Okay. Anyway. Song ends, it’s 9:07. Some business with the lights and the Host comes on. I don’t need to tell you there’ll be applause. He walks straight up to you, and—kiss or handshake? Suit yourself. After the handshake, a little small talk. Where you’re from, job, etc. Where are you from, by the way?

  How nice. I didn’t know they spoke English, but then it was British for years, wasn’t it?

  Anyway. Okay. Don’t worry about what to say; the Host has been briefed on your background, and he’ll ask a question or two. Short and sweet, sort of like Jeopardy.

  To meet him? Well—of course—maybe—tonight right before the show, if time allows. But you have to understand, Mr. Crystal’s a very busy man, Kim. Do you mind if I call you Kim?

  Right, we did. I remember. Sorry.

  Okay. Anyway. A little ad-lib and it’s 9:10. I have it all here on my clipboard, see? To the minute. At 9:10 there’s some business with the lights, then the Girls bring out the Presidents of the Common Market, the African Federation, the Americas, Pacific Rim, etc. Five gentlemen, one of them a lady this year, I believe. There’s a brief statement; nothing elaborate. “Your great courage, protecting our way of life” sort of thing. A few words on how the Lottery works, since this was the first year people were allowed to buy tickets for others.

  I’m sorry you feel that way. I’m sure voluntary would be better. But somebody must have bought you a ticket; that’s the way it works.

  Anyway. Okay. Where were we? 9:13, the Presidents. They have a plaque that goes to your family after. Don’t take it; it’s just to look at. Then a kiss; right, handshake. Sorry. I’ll make a note of it. Then they’re out of here, Stage Right. Don’t worry, the Girls manage all the traffic.

  Okay. 9:14, lights down, then up on the Native People’s presentation. You’re still standing here, Stage Left, watching them, of course. You might even like it. Three women and three men, clickers and drums and stuff. While the women dance, the men chant. “Science, once our enemy, now our brother” sort of thing. You’ll feel something on the back of your neck; that’s the wind machine. They finish at 9:17, cross to here, give you a kind of bark scroll. Take it but don’t try to unroll it. It’s 9:18 and they’re out of here, Stage Left. That’s the end of the—

  What? No, the corporations themselves don’t make a presentation. They want to keep a very low profile.

  Anyway. Okay. 9:19 and that’s the end of the warm-up, as we call it. The Host comes back out, and you walk with him—here, let’s try it—across to Center Stage. He’ll help you stay in the spotlight. He admires the scroll, makes a joke, ad-lib stuff; don’t worry about it. He’s done it every year now for six years and never flubbed yet.

  There won’t be so many wires underfoot tonight.

  Okay. It’s 9:20. You’re at Center Stage, toes here. That’s it, right on the mark. There’s more business with the lights, and the Host introduces the President of the International Institute of Environmental Sciences, who comes out from Stage Left. With the Donut. We don’t see it, of course. It’s in a white paper sack. He sets it here, on the podium in front of you.

  He stands out there, those green marks are his—we call him the Green Meany—and gives his Evils of Science rap, starting at 9:22. “For centuries, poisoned the Earth, fouled the air, polluted the waters, etc., etc.” It’s the same rap as last year but different, if you know what I mean. A video goes with it; what we call the sad video. You don’t have to watch if you don’t want to, just look concerned, alarmed, whatever. I mean it all really happened! Dead rivers, dead birds, dioxins. Two minutes’ worth.

  Okay. Anyway. It’s 9:24, and he starts what we call the glad video. Blue sky, birds, bears, etc. Gives the Wonders of Science rap where he explains how they have managed to collect and contain all the year’s toxic wastes, pollutants, etc., and keep them out of the environment—

  How? I don’t know exactly. I never listen to the technical part. Some kind of submolecular-nano-mini-mumbo-jumbo. But he explains it all, I’m pretty sure. I think there’s even a diagram. Anyway, he explains how all the toxic wastes for the year have been collected and concentrated into a single Donut. The fiscal year, by the way. That’s why the Ceremony is tonight and not New Year’s Eve.

  Okay. Anyway. Hands you the bag.

  Exits Stage Right, 9:27. Now it’s just you and the Host, and of course, the Donut, still in the bag.

  It might be a little greasy. You can hold it at the top if you want to. Whatever.

  Anyway. Okay. 9:28. You’ll hear a drumroll. It might sound corny now but it won’t sound corny then. I know because I’ve been here every year for six years, standing right over there in the wings, and I get a tear in my eye every time. Every damn time. The camera pulls in close. This is your moment. You reach in the bag and—

  Huh? It looks like any other donut. I’m sure it’ll be glazed, if that’s what you requested.

  Okay. Anyway. 9:29, but don’t worry about the time. This is your moment. Our moment, really, everybody in the world who cares about the environment, and these days that includes everybody. You reach in the bag, you pull out the Donut—

  What happens next? I get it, still joking. I admire somebody with your sense of humor. Kim.

  Anyway. Okay. We all know what happens next.

  You eat it.

  Canción Auténtica de Old
Earth

  “QUIETLY,” OUR GUIDE SAID.

  Quietly it was.

  We glided over ancient asphalt, past ghost-gray buildings that glowed in the old, cold light of a ruined Moon that seemed (even though we have all seen it in pictures a thousand times) too bright, too close, too dead.

  Our way was lighted by our photon shadow guide, enclosing us and the street around us in an egg of softer, newer light.

  At the end of a narrow lane, four streets came together in a small plaza. At one end was a stone church; at the other a glass and brick department store façade; both dating (my studies coming through at last) from the High European.

  “There’s no one here,” one of us said.

  “Listen . . .” said our guide.

  There came a rumbling. A synthesizer on a rubber-tired wood-and-wire cart rolled into the plaza out of an alley beyond the department store. It was pulled by an old man in black sweaters, layered against the planet’s chill, and a boy in a leather jacket. An old woman, also all in black, and a smiling man who looked to be about forty walked behind. His smile was the smile of the blind.

  “They still live here?” someone asked.

  “Where else could they live?”

  They stopped and a small yellow dog jumped down from the cart. The old man opened the synthesizer’s panels and connected its cables to a moldering fuel cell. Sparks flew. The boy took a dirty bundle from the cart and unwrapped a strat and a tambourine. He handed the tambourine to the blind man.

  The old lady carried a black vinyl purse. She watched not them, but us; and I had the “feeling” she was trying to remember who we were.

  The blind man was smiling past us, over us, as if at a larger crowd that had come into the plaza behind us. He was so convincing that I even “turned” to look. But of course, the plaza was empty. The city was empty except for us and them; the planet was empty. It had been empty for a thousand years, empty while the seas fell and rose then fell again; empty since the twist.

  The old lady watched while our guide flowed out and narrowed in a crescent, arranging us in a half circle around the musicians. Her face was as rough as the stones of the front of the church; her façade as fallen in.

  Except for the boy’s leather jacket, which was too shiny, everything they wore was old. Everything was cheap. Everything was black or gray.

  The old man switched on the synthesizer and started to play chords in blocks of three. An electronic drumbeat kept time, a slow waltz. After a few bars the boy came in on the strat, high wailing tremolos.

  “What about the singing?” someone complained in a whisper. “We came all the way across the Universe”—a slight exaggeration!—“for the singing.”

  “They used to sing for the tourists,” our guide said. “Now there’s only the occasional special group such as ours.

  The blind man began to dance. With the dog at his feet, he waltzed around our little half circle and then back, beating the tambourine first against the heel of one hand and then against his hip. Where his feet brushed our photon shadow guide, his shoes sparkled and looked almost new.

  As suddenly as he had started, he stopped, and the old man spoke in a shout:

  “Hidalgos y damas estimadas—”

  It was a variant of Latin, which I could almost follow, Catalan or Spanish or Romany perhaps. Looking over us (just as the blind man had) the old man welcomed us back to our ancient, our ancestral home, where we would always be welcome, no matter how far we strayed, no matter how many centuries we stayed away, no matter what form it pleased us to take, etc.

  “Y ahora, una canción auténtica de old Earth . . .” He gave a nod to the boy, who played a blues figure high in the cutaway—

  The blind man looked up to where a moon, the Moon, half filled the sky; then rose toward it on his tiptoes, and opened his mouth revealing blackened shards of teeth; and there was the singing we had come halfway across the Universe to hear.

  The little dog following him, he walked as he sang—up, then down our half circle. It was quite beautiful. It sounded just as we had always imagined it might. His eyes were closed (now that he was singing) but the dog looked directly at us, one by one, from our “feet” upward, as if searching for something or someone. I could only partly follow the words, but as the song rose and fell I knew he sang of the seas and of the cities, and of the centuries before the twist, when genetics locked our parents to a single planet and a single form. His song soared to a wail as he sang of the centuries after, and of the Universe that was ours at last. Listening, we huddled together inside our photon shadow guide; everything outside it, under that ruined Moon, even the little yellow dog, looked abandoned and lost.

  “They are the last?” one of us whispered.

  “According to them,” our guide said, in its low tone, “there will be no more.”

  The song was over. The singer bowed until the echo had died away. When he straightened and opened his eyes, they were filled like little seas.

  “The canción auténtica is said to be a very sad song,” said our guide.

  The old lady stepped forward at last. She opened the purse and someone produced a coin: The two met with a clink as if a long chain had just been closed. The dog followed in her footsteps as she walked around our half circle, holding out the purse, and each of us put in the coin we had brought. I wished I had brought two. Though where would I have found another? God knows what she did with them anyway. There was no trade, no commerce, nothing left to buy.

  “The canción auténtica seemed very sad to me,” someone said. I “nodded” in agreement. Certainly we can no longer sing, and it is said that since the twist we no longer feel sadness, but what is hearing a thing if not feeling it? What is the difference? How else account for the desolate colors where our faces might once have been?

  Closing the purse, the old woman returned to stand beside the cart. The blind man seemed ready to sing again, but the old man began closing the synthesizer, folding its panels in on themselves. The boy wrapped the strat, and then the tambourine, in the blanket. The photon shadow guide pulled in, gathering us into its egg of light, while the dog watched.

  It was time to go.

  When the others began moving, I hesitated at the edge of the department store’s shadow, just out of the Moon’s light. The singer stood watching us leave with his shining eyes, dead as moons. It struck me that he hadn’t come for the coins, but for something else; someone to sing for. Perhaps he wanted us to applaud, but of course that was impossible; perhaps he was still hoping we would all come home someday.

  The old man and the boy began pulling the cart away. The old woman called to the blind man and he turned and followed; the rumbling of the cart was all the guide he needed. The yellow dog stopped at the edge of the shadow, and turned, and looked back at me, as if he . . . as if I . . . But the blind man whistled, and the dog too was gone, following the cart; and without further ado I caught up with the others, and we left for our flyer, our starship, and our faraway home.

  Partial People

  QUESTIONS ARE BEING RAISED about people only incompletely seen, or found in boxes, perhaps under benches. Lips and eyes stuck under theatre seats like gum. Feet in shoes in rude doorways.

  Whatever mystery may have surrounded them can be cleared up at once. These are partial people.

  Partial people are not entire in themselves. They do not merit your consideration though they may vie for it.

  Partial people may seem to need medical attention because of lacking a leg, a side, an essential attribute, etc. Their partial quality [sic] is not, however, indication of a genuine medical condition. They do not need medical treatment, and if so, only a little.

  They may (they will!) claim to be dying, but how can that be? As a wise man once said, how can they truly die, who have only partially lived.

  Read my lips: These are partial people.

  * * *

  There has been speculation that they are from another or a parallel Universe. Science, however
, has confirmed that this is not so; or that if they are from another Universe, it is not an important one.

  The question of food is bound to come up. In general, it is best to pretend that partial people have already eaten.

  Appearance is an issue. The grotesque and often unpresentable appearance of partial people may provoke discussion, particularly among those looking for something ugly to talk about. Such discussion should be kept to a minimum.

  Traffic. It is rarely that they undertake to drive. Automotive controls, even with automatic transmission (most cars these days!), may prove daunting. Not to mention rentals.

  Partial people can cause traffic delays, however: As Leslie R—— drove toward a box in his/her lane on G—— Ave. in M——, he/she was surprised to find an arm sticking out of it. He/she was able to judge from the size of the rest of the box, however, that it was not large enough to contain an entire person, and therefore was able to maintain speed and direction, thus avoiding lane changing with its potential for accidents.

  To make a long story short, Leslie was not distracted by frantic hand waving. Crushing the box.

  Partial people may try to pass themselves off as entire people. Sometimes all, or almost all, the customary visual aspects may be present. It may be an internal organ or aspect that is missing, not apparent to the eye (or eyes, among the entire). For this reason, it is best to assume that importunate strangers are partial people.

  * * *

  Travel. Partial people must pay full fare but may not go the whole way. This limits their travel.

  Police experience with partial people is inconclusive. They are sometimes worth a beating, but rarely an Arrest.

  Money. Partial people usually have a little but are certain to ask for more. On the subway do not take their cards.

  In crowds, they stand cunningly so that three or four together may look like an entire person, or even two embracing. This marks the limit of their ability to cooperate.