- Where are these your friends now? Asked Ward.
- So they are in the house. Maybe you want to look at them? Only it will be difficult for you to understand what they are saying.
- Russians? Rafferty asked quickly.
- What do you! They are without these, like their ... bast shoes!
“Let's go,” the reporter said hoarsely and strode impatiently along the bridges drowning in the mud.
“You know, they already came to us once, six years ago,” the farmer continued talking. - For the eggs. I think that they were going to start a poultry farm there, at home. Well, while they got home for three years, the eggs were rotten. Then they turned and - back here. This time I made a small incubator for them to bring chickens right on the road. - He giggled pretty. - This thing flies to itself in the sky, and in it chickens run. Here's a laugh!
Alsop stopped on the porch and, before letting Rafferty into the house, said: “That's it, Mr. Rafferty. My mistress got a great deal of chatting with these gentlemen. So if you want to talk to them, contact her directly. ”
“Okay,” Ward said impatiently, gently but persistently pushing the farmer toward the door.
Mrs. Alsop sat in a chair and knitted a sock. A fan hummed peacefully on the table next to her. Rafferty looked to her right, and his jaw dropped. On the couch by the window sat two creatures with pale purple faces and round, as if painted eyes. Some strange flexible antennae, resembling antennas, swayed on their heads.
Rafferty leaned against the door so as not to fall. Mrs. Alsop, smiling complacently, turned to him.
“Here, Mr. Rafferty, ”she said,“ these are the very people who came to visit us in a balloon. ” Meet me please. She raised a finger, and both creatures turned their antennas to her. “And this is Mr. Rafferty, ”said the farmer. “He's a newspaper reporter.” He came to see what you flew into.
Rafferty nodded stunned. The creatures twisted the antennas and nodded politely in response. That one, which for some reason seemed to Ward as a female, scratched the side of her left claw. Rafferty flashed through his head: “Calm, Wordi! If this is a game, then the partner seems to go all-in. Now it's your turn. But you're a cunning guy. You will not let yourself be fooled. They take you for a fool and want to warm your hands with your help. But on what? Advertising? So it means: either this is a hoax, or you are drunk, or you are crazy. ”
And Rafferty asked in the most careless tone he was capable of:
“What did you say their name is, Mrs. Alsop? ”
“Yes, we really don't know,” the hostess answered. - You see, they are explained by pictures. These funny horns are pushing you and just thinking. And you, too, begin to think about what they are about. I asked what their name was, and then I let them think for me. And I saw a picture - a man is hammering on iron. So I guessed that calling them something like "people-who-forge-iron." Is this some indian name?
Rafferty furtively glanced at the people who forged iron, and then at Mrs. Alsop.
“What do you think,” he asked with an innocent look, “will they talk to me or is it ... thinking?”
Mrs. Alsop seemed puzzled.
- They, of course, will be very happy. True, at first it will be difficult for you.
“Nothing, somehow,” Rafferty said with hidden irony.
He nervously pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit a cigarette. From excitement, he forgot to extinguish the match, and she burned his fingers.
“And you throw her in a coal bucket,” sang Mrs. Alsop.
Rafferty threw a match in a coal bucket.
“Ask these uh ... your friends where they come from.”
Mrs. Alsop smiled again.
“It's not that easy, Mr. Rafferty, I already asked them. ” Just do not really understand what was happening. But if you want, I will ask again.
“This sweet young man,” she said aloud, as if talking to the deaf, “I would like to know where you came from.”
Mr. Alsop gently nudged Rafferty.
- You, as you want to hear the answer, raise your finger.
Feeling like a complete idiot, Rafferty raised a finger. Both horns immediately turned to him and aimed directly between the eyes.
The reporter involuntarily grabbed the door jamb. He had the feeling that someone was pulling, wrinkling and twisting his brain like a rubber toy. Horror seized him. He flew through a great white void. Asteroids and meteors passed by, a huge blue star, blinding with an unbearable brilliance, appeared before his mind's eye and disappeared. The obsession disappeared, and Rafferty still stood, clutching the jamb with white fingers. A smoldering cigarette lay on the floor at his feet.
“They dropped the cigarette, Mr. Rafferty. ” The old man picked up a cigarette butt from the floor and handed it to Ward.
The reporter stood as white as a canvas.
“Mr. Alsop, ”he managed. “Are they really from outer space?”
“That's for sure,” the farmer eagerly agreed. - From far away.
“Do you understand what this means?” - Rafferty hardly suppressed hysterical notes in his voice. - This is a great event! Where is your phone here?
“And we don't have a phone,” Mr. Alsop said phlegmatically. “Unless at a gas station, nearby.” Only after all, our guests are going home any minute. Maybe sit down? Together and go. They have already loaded everything - eggs, and an incubator, and eat something.
- What? - suffocated Rafferty. “You're crazy!” They cannot leave any minute. Lord, I need to urgently call, I need to call the photographer!
Mrs. Alsop looked up from her knitting and looked calmly at the raging reporter.
“Alas, dear Mr. Rafferty. ” We already tried to persuade them to have lunch with us, but for some reason they were impatient to go right now. They need to catch a tide or something like that.
“They need the moon,” Alsop explained with the air of a connoisseur. “It's all about the Moon, so that it is in the right place.”
Aliens from outer space sat modestly with claws on their knees and twisted antennas, as if wanting to show that they were not going to eavesdrop on other people's thoughts.
Rafferty looked crazy around the room, looking for a phone that didn't exist. “I have to let Joe Pegley know by all means,” he thought feverishly. “Joe's probably in the editorial office right now.” He will definitely come up with something. Although not. Most likely he will say: "Baby, you are again laden with such a wound." But this is a worldwide sensation. “This is the most global sensation, and you stand here and clap your ears!”
And then it dawned on him.
“Hey Alsop,” he yelled, “do you have a camera?” Old, overwhelming, whatever. I desperately need a device.
“But what about it,” said Alsop. - I have a wonderful camera. You know, such a harmonica. I shot them chickens - it turned out wonderfully. A whole bunch of photos. Now I will show them to you.
“What the hell are your chickens for me,” Rafferty groaned almost crying. - I need a device!
Grunting, the old man trudged into the living room, and through the open door Rafferty saw him rummaging in a heap of rubbish piled on the harmonium.
- Mrs. Alsop! Shouted Rafferty, clutching at the last chance. - I have a lot of questions for your guests!
“Do mercy,” the hostess answered readily. - I think they will not mind anything.
“My God, what are the aliens from outer space asking about? You know everything about them: what is their name, why are they here (for eggs), you even know where they come from ... "
“Ethel, have you come across my camera?” Came the voice of old Alsop from the living room. The farmer sighed.
“No, dear.” You removed it somewhere.
- Well, there's nothing. True, there are no films for him. That's bad luck.
But then the space guests set the antennas at each other, as if conferring and, apparently, having reached mutual agreement, suddenly jumped up and rushed back and forth across the room so quickly that Raffert
y could hardly distinguish between them. After a moment, they scooted past him and disappeared in the doorway.
Rafferty rushed after them. He ran to the barn, not understanding the road, ridiculously waving his arms and screaming at the top of his throat, trying to stop them. Halfway he stumbled and plopped down in the mud. At that moment, a sparkling ball quickly slipped out of the barn and, whistling through the air, darted upward and disappeared into low leaden clouds.
A small hole in the scorched earth and a thin stream of steam rising from it - that's all that remains of the space aliens. Rafferty remained seated in the mud, crushed and devastated, bitterly aware that the greatest sensation in the world, like a fabulous firebird, had irretrievably disappeared in the sky. No photos, no evidence, no witnesses - nothing. He stupidly went over the meager facts he had at his disposal. "Man-who-forges-iron." He repeated these words several times, and their meaning suddenly reached him. Lord, it's a blacksmith, that means Smith in English. Gee. A good headline: “Mr. and Mrs. Smith from planet X in the Alpha Centauri system paid Mr. Alfred Alsop a visit to his farm on Sunday."They left for their homeland with two baskets of hatched eggs and a home-made incubator, kindly presented by the friendly host.”
He got up and stood awkwardly for a while, looking at one point. Suddenly his eyes narrowed. Those who knew him would immediately have guessed that the ingenious brain of Ward Rafferty, the very brain that could squeeze at least a couple of lines out of nothing, again worked at full capacity. He galloped off to the house and broke into the door.
- Alsop! He yelled. “Did these types pay for the eggs?”
Mr. Alsop stood on a chair in front of the sideboard and rummaged through it in search of a camera.
- But what about? - he was surprised. - In its own way, true, but paid.
“Let me see the money,” Rafferty demanded.
“And this is not money at all,” said the farmer. “They didn't have any money.” Just when they were here six years ago, they left us in return a dozen eggs that they brought from home.
- Six years ago! Moaned Rafferty. - Wait, wait, you said eggs? What kind of eggs?
Mr. Alsop grunted quite a bit:
“But God knows them.” Strange such, in the shape of a star. We planted a hen on them. At first, she didn’t at all want to hatch them - to see, they injected strongly. But nothing, then got used to it.
The old man got down from his chair.
“In general, I tell you, there is nothing special about these eggs.” Some kind of funny little ones hatched from them - we called them star ducklings. They are a bit like little hippos and a bit like swallows. And they have six legs. True, only two survived. We ate them the same year on Thanksgiving.
Rafferty's brain worked feverishly, trying to find at least something that would make his editor - and the world - believe.
He brought his face to the very ear of the old man. “Mr. Alsop, ”he asked in a whisper. “And you, by chance, are not up to speed with where the skeletons of these star ducklings can be?”
The farmer scratched his head in a puzzled manner.
“Are these bones?” And we gave them to the dog. Five years have passed since then. And that dog died long ago.
Rafferty mechanically took his hat and slowly, like a somnambulist, headed for the door, muttering:
“Thank you, Mr. Alsop, you were very kind, Mr. Alsop, thank you for your attention, Mr. Alsop. ”
Going out onto the porch, Rafferty clutched his hat and began to walk down the steps, staring blankly under his feet. He was already at the gate when Mr. Alsop ran out of the house, erasing dust from a battered leather case with his sleeve.
“Where are you, Mr. Rafferty? ” Take a look! Here is my camera! I found him under the couch.
Sam martinez
"For heaven's sake ..."
Translation from English V. Gakova
DEATH CERTIFICATE
Surname, first name - Kramm, Clarissa. Number - July 9, 1950
Location - Princeton Arms Apartment Chicago, Cook County, Illinois.
Date of birth - 11/20/1902.
Date of death - 4.7.1950.
The diagnosis is death from an accident.
The time of death is 16.27.
Relationship status: Single.
Female gender.
Race - White.
The attending physician is Dr. Rj bacon
The immediate cause of death is ptomein poisoning (see attached autopsy protocol).
Signature: Carl Stubbs,
county coroner.
"Chicago Tribune" on 5.7.1950.
AGAIN POISONING:
The annual Women's Anti-Nicotine League picnic, held yesterday, ended tragically: the death of one person and the hospitalization of another eleven. They say that the cause of the poisoning was stale meat. Immediately after lunch with Miss Clarissa Kramm, a resident of our city, convulsions occurred. On the way to the hospital, she died.
For a long time, Miss Krumm took an active part in social events and stood at the head of many religious and civil reformist movements.
Relatives of the deceased (two brothers and a sister) also live in Chicago. It is reported that the funeral will take place on Thursday afternoon. Everyone who knew the deceased is invited.
REQUEST FOR ACCESSION TO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
The petitioner is Miss Clarissa Krumm.
A discharge is mortal from Earth.
Occupation - writer, lecturer, active participant in reformist movements.
Religious affiliation - Christian, Protestant.
Other activities include participation in the Organization for the Fight against Defects; Holy Alliance of Sobriety; Women's Alcohol League, member of the board; Women's Society of Religious Education, chairman; Comic Book Prohibition Committee, etc.
Note My life was the life of a true Christian, devoted to the work of serving my neighbor and turning him away from the path of vice. Therefore, I see no reason that could hinder my acceptance of the blessed.
Signature: Clarissa Kramm.
APPLICATION FORM
(Archive department)
The name is Clarissa Kramm.
Case - KD 679,331,095.
Tom - 7,472,621.
Pages - 79.325-79.336
The personal file of the supplicant does not contain any mark of committed sins. Over the course of her life, the supplicant has committed 3742 charitable deeds, not counting her active participation in organizations, the list of which is attached.
Ariel
registrar angel.
APPOINTMENT TO OFFICE
The job seeker is Miss Clarissa Krumm.
Your application for your admission to the Kingdom of Heaven has been received and considered in the appropriate instances in a positive sense. You are hereby blessed. You are assigned to section ZP-847 of the heavenly choir. Your immediate responsibilities will be communicated to you locally. Amen!
St. Peter
Guardian of the Gates of Heaven.
RECEIPT IN RECEIPT
White dress, 44th size - one thing.
Wings, size medium - one pair.
Nimbus, 6th size - one.
The harp is one.
Got Clarissa Kramm.
St. Peter
Gatekeeper
Dear Sir!
I hope that you will not find my letter an expression of discontent (my reverence for the Kingdom of Heaven is too deep to show such a feeling). However, I cannot refrain from expressing certain critical remarks, which, of course, are not related to the order itself, but to some individuals who dishonestly relate to the duties assigned to them.
First of all, I am surprised (at least!) By the principle of selecting a repertoire. Instead of strict, majestic chorales, the heavenly choir often allows itself to turn to works that are vulgar and meaningless, while the lofty goals facing the choir are completely forgotten. It is regrettable to state that even when the choir turns to choirs, they are arranged clearly in a modernist spi
rit. (Recently, I was horrified to find that even “Hallelujah” is performed in a jazz arrangement!) I considered it my duty to draw the choirmaster's attention to these glaring facts, but Gabriel reacted to my remarks with frivolity, bordering, in my opinion , with a form of connivance.You won't believe it: he went so far as to allow himself to literally say the following: “And in my opinion, there is nothing better than a pair of such intricate little things to revive these lodgers and make them scream:“ Glory ! ”
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