by Terry Carr
“Puppy?” Violynne inquired.
Fido lowered its—his?—head as they passed through the doorway and came into the lobby, (now renting! said a sign upon a silver stand there. giraffes welcome!) She could see a worried frown on its brow.
“Do I mean kitten?” Fido wondered.
“Calf must be the proper word,” she said with a confident air. Since she was bearing one end of the leash and Fido had the other fastened to the collar around his neck, she felt it only just that she should be the one to make these decisions and if later she were to be proved wrong—why, what of it? There was an order to the world and each being must be made aware of its proper place.
As they strolled down the street together, Violynne and her gentle giraffe, she was pleased to note that others were also exercising their pets. The shapes, colors, and varieties of giraffe were quite astonishing. She saw some no taller than her waist, others as large as delivery vans. Some had pelts of snowy white, spotted with yellow, red, or blue. Some had hairless skins as black as moonless night. Most had coats as short and straight as Fido’s but some sported curls and ringlets while others were longhairs. Among the latter there was even more variety, the length allowing for braids and waves. The fancier ones had gems and gewgaws bound up in their tresses, of which they seemed very vain.
Giraffe owners were a friendly lot, nodding and smiling at each other, stopping to pass the time of day in brief conversation while attracting envious glances from giraffeless pedestrians. The pets, too, were sociable and would pause to twine necks or to press cheeks together. It was an endearing sight.
Upon hearing rapid foot- and hoof-steps behind her Violynne turned and discovered she was being overtaken by a man and a panting purple giraffe racing to catch a bus. Naturally, politeness demanded that she step aside and as she did so she heard ill-humored grumbling from a man standing by a shopfront.
“Ruining the breed, that’s what they’re doing. Simply ruining the breed.”
The sign above the shop stated pedigreed giraffes and from the man’s bearing Violynne surmised this could be none other than the owner of that establishment. Fido began to graze from a box of giraffe-nip mounted at a convenient height over the window. Violynne’s heart quickened its beat, for here she saw an opportunity to cure her ignorance about the animal everyone else had seemingly known and loved since childhood but she had noticed for only the first time on this strange Giraffe Tuesday.
“Good morning,” she said. Gesturing with her head toward the purple giraffe now climbing the steps of the bus, she added, “Odd color for a giraffe, don’t you think?”
The man’s face brightened at this expression of agreement with his position, for such was the impression she had intended her words to give.
“Quite right!” he expostulated. “It makes a true animal lover heartsick to see what unscrupulous breeders have done. Such overbred specimens are always frail and sickly. I’ve even heard it said they become so stupid they cannot talk.”
Violynne took this to mean he had no purple giraffes among his stock and, what is more, had had more than one request for them.
“There should be a law against it!” she said, feigning shock and disapproval.
She chatted with the man for several minutes and dropped a few innocent questions, attempting to learn a few basic facts regarding giraffe ownership. The man was most helpful, mentioning vitamins and curry combs, voice and posture lessons.
Casting about wildly for some explanation that would fit giraffes into her previously faulty worldview, she said, “Perhaps you can settle an argument I have been having with a friend. The question arose as to how long the giraffe has been domesticated. My friend says it first occurred two or three hundred years ago but it seems to me the event was much more recent than that.”
At once the man’s scorn returned full force and he turned on her the burning eyes of a true fanatic. “I can see,” he said, “that neither you nor your friend know anything at all about this noble animal. The giraffe was the first domesticated animal, its origins lost in the myths of prehistory. Indeed, there are those who avow it was not man who tamed the giraffe, but giraffe who tamed the man, requiring a workbeast to brush its coat, to cultivate and prepare the delicacies it prefers, and to provide conversation by the fireside at night.”
“Is that right?” Violynne asked, bemused. How could she have missed something that must have been mentioned in every social studies and biology lesson in elementary school? Hoping to get back into the man’s good graces, for he might be a source of further information, she said, “You know, I have been thinking it would be pleasant to hear the patter of little hooves around my apartment. Might you have for sale a female of this size and type?”
The man’s scorn doubled and redoubled as he looked upon gentle Fido, waiting patiently, still grazing at the box of giraffe-nip. “I do not deal in mongrels,” he said shortly, and turned on his heel to enter his shop.
Violynne, who only moments before had been feeling a slight sense of discomfort because her pet was so plain and ordinary, was now roused to anger.
“Fido is not a mongrel,” she said with as much hauteur as she could muster. “He is a domestic shorthair.”
The owner of the giraffe shop (whom she could now see was not worthy of her time, for who but a man without a soul would dare to earn a living from the sale of giraffes?) did not deign to answer except to slam the door of his establishment, setting the bell a-jangle. But then dear Fido put his great head upon her shoulder and whispered such words of comfort and affection into her ear that her heart was filled near to bursting.
Almost immediately upon turning away from the giraffe shop, that den of iniquity, Violynne’s gaze fell upon one giraffe before whom all, pets and owners and unaccompanied pedestrians alike, stood aside and stared in awe. Its fur was of an unspotted pearl gray and looked to be as soft as the fur of a chinchilla. Its eyes were as blue as the purest of mountain pools. Most astounding of all was its neck, which was twisted as a corkscrew, ending in a half-turn so the giraffe was perpetually looking back to see where it had been. As it ambled down the street with its owner it was gazing back at Fido and Violynne, not rudely staring but with rather a queenly expression on its face.
Violynne was about to turn away, fearing yet another slur upon her pet’s lineage, another blow to Fido’s tender feelings, even though it might be unspoken, when something about the appearance of the corkscrew-necked giraffe’s owner caught her attention. It was the sight of the tips of mustachios projecting beyond each side of the man’s head. Could it be? Dare she hope?
“John?” she called out in a hesitant manner.
Indeed, it was he. Her lover turned and his expression brightened the moment his gaze fell upon her, the tips of his Dali mustachios rising a full three inches as he smiled.
“Violynne, my darling, I did not see you standing there. Or rather, should I say I did not expect to see you at this time of the morning, so, of course, I could not. Shall you not be late arriving at the button factory?”
Violynne thought with regret of gaping trousers and shirtwaists. “Yes, I’m afraid that I shall but some things cannot be helped. Oh, John, I have had an eventful morning!”
An expression of concern crossed his face and his mustachios could almost be said to have drooped. “Sweetheart! Not so eventful, I sincerely hope, that you have had no time to consider the question I put to you last evening?”
Violynne pondered as Fido licked the back of the gray giraffe’s head. What question could her lover have expressed the previous evening? She searched her memory in vain. Had there been such a question, the experience of waking this Tuesday morning to find a giraffe in her bedroom had driven it quite out of her mind.
Seeing her apparent distress, John hastened to remind her. “My dearest one, I begged you most humbly to grant me the honor of becoming my spouse. I hope you can understand how eagerly I have been awaiting your reply.”
“Ahh,” Violynne breathed with sadness and regret.
Had she been reminded of the question earlier that morning there would have been no hesitation in answering, for she loved John dearly. However, the encounter with the owner of the giraffe shop and her developing affection for Fido and the sight of John’s spectacular companion had all combined to make her doubt that there could be wedded bliss in the future for her and John.
John’s mustachios reached a five and seven o’clock position on his face. “Oh, I fear I see the answer upon your face and I cannot bear it! Say it is not so, my darling. Say that you shall not reject me.”
There was the sound of soft sobbing in the morning air. With a start Violynne realized it issued, not from her lover, but from the spiral-necked giraffe, whose face she could not see due to its peculiarly twisted anatomy. Apparently these animals were so sensitive that they were a perfect reflection of their owners’ emotions. Even Fido, when he turned to gaze at her, was moist-eyed, though he spoke not a word.
“The giraffes—” she explained, somewhat overcome herself.
“The giraffes?” John repeated. “Please tell me it is not the giraffes that have changed your feelings for me. My darling, I did it only to give you pleasure. An amusing little pre-engagement gift, I thought. Could I have erred?”
“You, John? You had something to do with—with giraffes?” She felt so confused. She was almost certain it was the government John worked for—surely not as a giraffe breeder. Curses upon this faulty memory of hers! Unconsciously she began to stroke the soft fur of Fido’s neck. So dear to her he was. Could he have been a gift from her lover?
John looked down modestly and began to scuff the toe of one polished shoe against the sidewalk. “Yes, it was I,” he confessed. Then, looking slyly from one side to another as if to assure himself there were no eavesdroppers in the vicinity, he added, “I tried to think of some delightful little thing to mark the beginning of what I hope will be a joyful marriage. Giraffes are so—so fantastical don’t you think? Like unicorns. It was an abuse of my position, I know, but—”
“Your position?” she inquired, more puzzled than before.
One mustachio tickled her chin as he leaned forward to whisper. “My position as Reality Adjuster for the government, of course. I arrange to eliminate all the things threatening our national security. But, darling, when I arranged for the giraffes I was also all but certain I had arranged that you and I, alone out of all the world, would remember that they have not always been a part of our lives. Did I make a mathematical miscalculation somewhere?”
Understanding dawned upon Violynne like a glorious sunburst. It had not been her own failing that was responsible for her ignorance of giraffes in everyday life! In spite of the assertion of the snobbish owner of the giraffe shop, the noble beast had not been the first to be domesticated. Indeed, they had not acquired their current place in the world until John had exercised his ultra-secret skills—an abuse of his position, certainly, but accomplished in all innocence on her behalf.
“Oh, my darling, what a wonderful gift! How could I say anything but yes to the man who tries so hard to please me?” But as he leaned forward to kiss her upon the cheek and to press her hand with unspoken passion, Violynne was assailed by a brief moment of uncertainty.
“But, my dear one,” she whispered, nodding toward Fido and the pearl-gray giraffe, who seemed to have captured or been captured by the affectionate fervor of the moment. “Perhaps you did make one slight miscalculation. What of our sweet companions and their possible—progeny? The laws of genetics—”
“Bah upon the laws of genetics!” he cried grandly, taking her arm and escorting her down the street past guard giraffes at the bank, past singing giraffes begging for pennies, past rat-catching giraffes at the greengrocer’s. “I will arrange for the laws of genetics to be subtracted from reality the instant you become my bride!”
She reached up to tweak the tip of one of his mustachios. “Not all of them, I hope.”
The disciplines of medicine and genetics have been making rapid strides toward giving us greatly lengthened lives, perhaps even immortality. But scientific research requires large amounts of funding, so probably when breakthroughs are made in this area the benefits will go first to the very rich. Here’s a story about New Year’s Eve in the year 2100, about the wealthy few who will be attending their second tum-of-the-century party, and the reactions of the less fortunate who may still be limited to “normal” life spans.
Arthur Jean Cox has been publishing thought-provoking science fiction stories for thirty-five years… which means he’s now of an age when speculations about longevity naturally concern him. So shall they concern all of us, and sooner than we probably think.
ARTHUR JEAN COX - EVERGREEN
Gay, lilting music spilled into the hallway from the ballroom—“The Ballroom in the Sky,” as it billed itself, for it was on an upper floor of a lofty Manhattan hotel—and no passerby failed to turn a momentarily quickened eye toward its large door. That door was flanked by two small evergreen trees in ceramic jars and each tree was flanked, on the side nearest the door, by a man. These were both serious men, with watchful eyes and positively grim haircuts: men who meant business, although everyone in the room behind them meant play. For more than music spilled into the hallway. There was also laughter and the happy chatter of some three hundred men and women who seemed to be celebrating a triumph of some sort or to be congratulating themselves on their own sense of life. In these respects they were, of course, very much like any New Year’s Eve crowd… and, as a matter of fact, it was New Year’s Eve. In another two hours and twenty-eight minutes there would begin, at the stroke of midnight, the year 2100.
There were not many passersby, but there were a few; and one turned more than his quickened eye toward the large door. He turned also his feet, until he was stopped by the two guards, who had moved forward to block his way.
“May we help you, sir?”
“I would like to see Mr. Grandcourt.”
“And what,” asked the guard to his right—a soft-looking man, but so very large that he dwarfed both the passerby and the other guard—“what is the nature of your business with him?”
“I’m afraid it’s personal.”
Their eyes searched his face. It was an ordinary enough face, although its eyes were still a little too quickened; the face of a man of, say, forty.
“Personal?” It was again the large guard who spoke; the other was clearly a subordinate personage. “You are acquainted with Mr. Grandcourt, then?”
“Oh, yes! I’ve known Dave for years. We went to school together.”
And the faces of the two guards froze.
But the passerby didn’t notice. He was craning his neck to look past the guards into the Ballroom. It was a glittering crowd that he saw there: obviously affluent, distinctly youngish, and very well groomed—if you made allowance (as he did) for an eccentric uniformity of dress. For the men all wore green tuxedoes and the women flaring gowns of muted greens and yellows. But he didn’t care: he’d found what he was looking for. “There’s Dave now—standing at that table over there under the windows and looking out over the crowd with that imperial gaze of his.”
And in his eagerness he started forward, raising his arm as if to hail the man he had come to see. But neither movement was completed. Both guards fell upon him and bore him to the floor. He was pinned to the carpet and the object he held in his uplifted hand was wrenched from his grip. And, suddenly, other men with grim haircuts had come running down the hallway and they too laid hands upon the passerby. He was hoisted to his feet and hustled out of sight so quickly and so very quietly that one might almost have fancied he would never be seen again. And they took with them the small but deadly explosive device with which he had meant to greet his old friend.
All this was done so efficiently that the three hundred men and women in the Ballroom never knew that it had taken place or that they had ever been, for a passing moment, in any danger. And the music swept some scores of them across the mirr
ored dance floor in a lilting, gliding movement.
It was now 10 p.m. And at this moment there could be detected a change in the tempo of the humming swarm in the Ballroom, but only on one side, at the edge of the crowd nearest the door. For someone had entered there, someone who was trailed after a little uncertainly, even a little sheepishly, by the two guards. People passing by stopped and stared at this newcomer. Men and women dining at nearby tables suspended that interesting activity, forks and spoons poised near their mouths. The nearest dancing couples faltered and slowed, the face of each partner turned in her direction.
There was something shocking in the appearance of this woman. Everyone felt that; it was reflected in every face. Someone watching those faces might have seen here and there very much the same words trembling silently but visibly upon more than one pair of lips: “Old… terribly old. ” And then the next moment one would have seen something very strange: those lips became still and then smiled a curious inward ironic smile. And yet it was undeniable that she was old—old and horribly decayed. Her face was spotted and bruised and wrinkled beyond repair. Her hair was gray and very scanty. The arms projecting from her ridiculously fluffy dress were painfully thin, almost as thin as the two canes with which she tested the floor before her as she advanced. Her gown spared the viewers any glimpse of her legs and for that they might well have been grateful. The dark eyes that glittered from her ruined face were the only things about her that seemed truly alive—the objection that could have been made to them, that was made to them, was that they were too alive. And, as she advanced, ripples of pity, disgust, horror, and—could it be?—guilt spread outward from her through the crowd… spread outward and slowly faded away.
A man came forward and confronted her. He was a tall man with a forehead so high and hair so light in texture and color that one’s first glancing impression was that he was bald. But he wasn’t bald; and once one noticed that, one revised one’s estimate of his age downward from, say, fifty to within a year or two of thirty.