[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
into cans variously marked "regular," "choice," "supreme," and "cat food."
I became a writer, and a fairly successful one, but some nights when I lie sleepless, I
hear the meatpacking plant calling to me, calling, calling.... On these occasions, a yearning of
indescribable intensity fills me, rather like a gas bloat but poignant. Perhaps I have failed God
by not making a life in meatpacking. But on the other hand, perhaps meat packing is my false
destiny, and perhaps the plant that calls to me in such sweet melancholy tones in the night is
owned by Satan, who means to mislead me from my one true mission into a frustrating and useless
career in processed pork.
This is precisely the type of skull-busting quandary that has driven the great
philosophers to fill libraries with their musings on the nature of creation and the plight of
humanity. Therefore, I doubt that I will be able to resolve these weighty issues in a conversation
with you, regardless of how long we sit here or how many lemon beers we consume. How much better
if each of us had been born with detailed instructions tattooed on his or her buttocks. We would
need a mirror to read them, of course, and an ability to decipher reversed images, but these would
be simple problems compared to those we now face.
file:///G|/rah/Dean%20R.%20Koontz/Dean%20R....-%20The%20Book%20Of%20Counted%20Sorrows.txt (12 of 37) [2/9/2004 10:17:56 PM]
file:///G|/rah/Dean%20R.%20Koontz/Dean%20R.%20Koontz%20-%20The%20Book%20Of%20Counted%20Sorrows.txt
Which obviously brings me to Addison Heffalope, the doomed poet, who came into possession
of The Book of Counted Sorrows in 1938.
Heffalope - Heff to his friends, Alope to his enemies - knew that he was doomed from the
day he was born. His first word, spoken even before Dada or Mama, was simply death, in a most
somber tone for a mere toddler. His second word was despair, his third was hopeless; and his
fourth was brontosaurus, because even suicidally depressed tykes love dinosaurs. He didn't get
around to saying Dada or Mam a until he was nineteen, by which time he was already carrying a gold-
embossed business card identifying himself as "Addison Heffalope, Poet (Doomed)."
In 1936, at the age of 21, Heff married a female wrestler named Bea Scuttles, whom he had
met in a conga line at a funeral for his friend, Toynbee Doob, whose business card had read
"Toynbee Doob, Songwriter (Doomed)." The doomed tend to find one another in this cold lonely
world, and to take a warm fuzzy solace in their shared burden of utter hopelessness. By the age of
22, Toynbee had written six smash hit songs, whereupon he had been pecked to death by a flock of
rabid young actresses who had come to Hollywood seeking fame, with stars in their eyes, with hope
in their hearts, but without all the necessary vaccinations.
Bea Scuttles, by all reports, did not consider herself to be doomed, but she was drawn to
Heff anyway. Together they produced a child named Hisser, of indeterminate sex, whom they tried so
very desperately to love, but who was, in fact, a hideous mutant with six legs, four arms, sucker
pads on its hands and feet, a mouth half as big as its misshapen head, blazing red eyes, and an
adorable mass of springy blond curls that once made Shirley Temple weep bitterly with envy. Hisser
spent most of the day hiding from the sun, most of the night crawling across ceilings, and would
eat little more than raw carrots and live cats. Hisser would drink anything, but only through a
straw, and it had the annoying habit of loudly blowing bubbles in whatever beverage it was
consuming.
Eventually the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals became suspicious
after Heff and Bea adopted 3,624 cats from various animal shelters in the greater Los Angeles
area. When the ASPCA representative paid a surprise visit and interrupted Hisser at dinner - a
live-cat sandwich and a side of carrot slaw - the jig was up. By order of the court, the child was
made a ward of the state and was conveyed to the compassionate but high-security facility known as
the Malibu Home for Monstrous and Dangerous Mutant Children.
To us, in this more enlightened age, it seems all but impossible to believe that mutant
children, regardless of how monstrous or how dangerous, would ever forcibly be separated from
their parents and kept in a locked facility. We now understand that the right thing to do is
embrace even the most monstrous and dangerous mutants - nay, not merely embrace them but celebrate
them - in recognition of our awareness that there is a little of the mutant in every one of us,
even if we don't eat live cats, the brains of unwary schoolteachers, or masses of steaming cow
guts. In that intolerant and ignorant era, however, all dangerous mutant children were
sequestered, men were expected to be courteous to women, women were expected not to discuss
gynecological problems over dinner in a fine restaurant, and all non-mutant children uniformly [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl rafalstec.xlx.pl
into cans variously marked "regular," "choice," "supreme," and "cat food."
I became a writer, and a fairly successful one, but some nights when I lie sleepless, I
hear the meatpacking plant calling to me, calling, calling.... On these occasions, a yearning of
indescribable intensity fills me, rather like a gas bloat but poignant. Perhaps I have failed God
by not making a life in meatpacking. But on the other hand, perhaps meat packing is my false
destiny, and perhaps the plant that calls to me in such sweet melancholy tones in the night is
owned by Satan, who means to mislead me from my one true mission into a frustrating and useless
career in processed pork.
This is precisely the type of skull-busting quandary that has driven the great
philosophers to fill libraries with their musings on the nature of creation and the plight of
humanity. Therefore, I doubt that I will be able to resolve these weighty issues in a conversation
with you, regardless of how long we sit here or how many lemon beers we consume. How much better
if each of us had been born with detailed instructions tattooed on his or her buttocks. We would
need a mirror to read them, of course, and an ability to decipher reversed images, but these would
be simple problems compared to those we now face.
file:///G|/rah/Dean%20R.%20Koontz/Dean%20R....-%20The%20Book%20Of%20Counted%20Sorrows.txt (12 of 37) [2/9/2004 10:17:56 PM]
file:///G|/rah/Dean%20R.%20Koontz/Dean%20R.%20Koontz%20-%20The%20Book%20Of%20Counted%20Sorrows.txt
Which obviously brings me to Addison Heffalope, the doomed poet, who came into possession
of The Book of Counted Sorrows in 1938.
Heffalope - Heff to his friends, Alope to his enemies - knew that he was doomed from the
day he was born. His first word, spoken even before Dada or Mama, was simply death, in a most
somber tone for a mere toddler. His second word was despair, his third was hopeless; and his
fourth was brontosaurus, because even suicidally depressed tykes love dinosaurs. He didn't get
around to saying Dada or Mam a until he was nineteen, by which time he was already carrying a gold-
embossed business card identifying himself as "Addison Heffalope, Poet (Doomed)."
In 1936, at the age of 21, Heff married a female wrestler named Bea Scuttles, whom he had
met in a conga line at a funeral for his friend, Toynbee Doob, whose business card had read
"Toynbee Doob, Songwriter (Doomed)." The doomed tend to find one another in this cold lonely
world, and to take a warm fuzzy solace in their shared burden of utter hopelessness. By the age of
22, Toynbee had written six smash hit songs, whereupon he had been pecked to death by a flock of
rabid young actresses who had come to Hollywood seeking fame, with stars in their eyes, with hope
in their hearts, but without all the necessary vaccinations.
Bea Scuttles, by all reports, did not consider herself to be doomed, but she was drawn to
Heff anyway. Together they produced a child named Hisser, of indeterminate sex, whom they tried so
very desperately to love, but who was, in fact, a hideous mutant with six legs, four arms, sucker
pads on its hands and feet, a mouth half as big as its misshapen head, blazing red eyes, and an
adorable mass of springy blond curls that once made Shirley Temple weep bitterly with envy. Hisser
spent most of the day hiding from the sun, most of the night crawling across ceilings, and would
eat little more than raw carrots and live cats. Hisser would drink anything, but only through a
straw, and it had the annoying habit of loudly blowing bubbles in whatever beverage it was
consuming.
Eventually the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals became suspicious
after Heff and Bea adopted 3,624 cats from various animal shelters in the greater Los Angeles
area. When the ASPCA representative paid a surprise visit and interrupted Hisser at dinner - a
live-cat sandwich and a side of carrot slaw - the jig was up. By order of the court, the child was
made a ward of the state and was conveyed to the compassionate but high-security facility known as
the Malibu Home for Monstrous and Dangerous Mutant Children.
To us, in this more enlightened age, it seems all but impossible to believe that mutant
children, regardless of how monstrous or how dangerous, would ever forcibly be separated from
their parents and kept in a locked facility. We now understand that the right thing to do is
embrace even the most monstrous and dangerous mutants - nay, not merely embrace them but celebrate
them - in recognition of our awareness that there is a little of the mutant in every one of us,
even if we don't eat live cats, the brains of unwary schoolteachers, or masses of steaming cow
guts. In that intolerant and ignorant era, however, all dangerous mutant children were
sequestered, men were expected to be courteous to women, women were expected not to discuss
gynecological problems over dinner in a fine restaurant, and all non-mutant children uniformly [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]