Groff Conklin (ed) by 13 Great Stories of Science Fiction

Author:13 Great Stories of Science Fiction [Fiction, 13 Great Stories of Science]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-08-28T14:03:49+00:00

Shipping Clerk

by

William Morrison

Where Silence, Please! and Soap Opera belong to the satirical school of science fiction humor, this tale is pure farce— in my book, a great deal border to write well than almost any other kind of fantasy or humor. Mr. Morrison's deft touch has avoided all the pitfalls that are dug before this difficult approach to fiction, and the result is a hilarious picture of a Wonderful Alien Invention's effects on a human nonentity.

I

F there had ever been a time when Ollie Keith hadn't been hungry, it was so far in the past that he couldn't remember it. He was hungry now as he walked through the alley, his eyes shifting lusterlessly from one heap of rubbish to the next. He was hungry through and through, all one hundred and forty pounds of him, the flesh distributed so gauntly over his tall frame that in spots it seemed about to wear through, as his clothes had. That it hadn't done so in forty-two years sometimes struck Ollie as in the nature of a miracle.

He worked for a junk collector and he was unsuccessful in his present job, as he had been at everything else. Ollie had followed the first part of the rags-to-riches formula with classic exactness. He had been-bom to rags, and then, as if that hadn't been enough, his parents had died, and he had been left an orphan. He should have gone to the big city,

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