More Than Melchisedech by R. A. Lafferty

Author:R. A. Lafferty [Lafferty, R. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Tales & Fables
Publisher: Books of Sand
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“Are you talking about live people and live animals, Margaret? And what are these new parks and courtyards and places that you're jabbering about?”

“Oh, the broken people and animals are mostly papier-mâché or rubber or styrofoam or plastic. After they break up and die that's all that's left of them. But some of them were pretty lively before the end. There was one fire-drake (or he was half man and half fire-drake) who bit a lady in the leg and got blood all over the street. Some people took her to Doctor Doyle with it. ‘That's a terrible bite,’ he said. ‘I think it gave you infections draconitis. You have to show me what bit you.’ He went out with the people to look at it. When he found out that it was just a fire-drake made out of rubber, and that it was fabulous besides, he didn't know what to think. But a laboratory has checked what the lady has, and it's infectious draconitis all right. They think she'll die.”

“Margaret, what sort of convention was going on in town last night?”

“Oh, just three or four very ordinary ones. No, this is the straight dope, Mary V. I wasn't cordial on the stuff last night. And the courtyards and parks and nooks aren't new, except for not being there before. They're quite old and weathered, and they're full of almost the biggest trees in town. They're very ingrown and curious. New things aren't usually that ingrown and pleasant. And the thing that chokes me is that nobody remembers what was in those places yesterday. ‘I live there,’ one man said (you know him, he's that Russian Sarkis Popotov), ‘and now there's a place next door to me named Artaguette Park. It looks unfamiliar to me, but some of those horsey tourists who are in town say that it'll look familiar by tomorrow. I've lived there for forty years, and I know that there were some kind of buildings next to me, but I sure can't remember what they were.’ That's what old Sarkis said. And there are other places like that. The town's full of them this morning.”

“What were the people in the Quarter drinking last night, Margaret?”

“Green Ladies mostly,” Margaret Stone said. “You know, like Peppermint Schnapps, except with absinthe instead of the schnapps. That's what everybody has been drinking all week. Why don't you go with me to the Pop History meetings today, Mary Virginia?”

‘Margaret was small and intense, with a large voice that was saved from stridence only by a certain music in it. But it broke at least once a week, and it wasn't nearly as large. She was Italian and Jew, with possibly a little bit of the Greek and the Pre-Adamite in her. She would have been beautiful in repose, but no one had ever seen her so.’ So, at least, an old describer has described her. But he didn't mention the terrible tragedy and passion that was sometimes in her face. It was

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