THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER GOES TO MARS by Thomas Disch

Author:Thomas Disch [Disch, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The appliances landed on the surface of Mars at precisely 24:36, Mars time. (The Martian day is twenty-four hours and forty minutes long, which is a long-standing grievance with its cuckoo clocks, but really, forty minutes is a small difference.) The toaster, as captain, was the first to alight on the dusty surface of the red planet, and its first thought was for the old Hoover back at home and how wise he’d been to stay there. Earth’s dustiest attic would have seemed like a cover on Good Housekeeping by comparison with the plain of Claritas.

The toaster’s second thought was for the tensor lamp, for at this hour, four minutes before the Martian midnight, Claritas was very dark. The only light came from the two small moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, which might more aptly have been called Feeble and Dimmest. It was dark.

“Ach,” said the hearing aid, who was the last to emerge from the laundry basket, “welch Dunkel hier!”

“He says,” the ceiling fan interpreted, “ ‘How dark it is here.’”

“Very dark, indeed,” the toaster agreed, looking about nervously. “I wonder if we’ve landed where we were supposed to. I don’t see any signs of the Welcoming Committee.”

“Hör zu!” whispered the hearing aid (which is German for “Listen!”). “I can’t see a thing, but I think I hear them.”

They listened intently, and sure enough, from far, far away, but coming closer every minute, the chimes of the Martian Welcoming Committee could be heard playing the “Merry Christmas Polka.”

“Why, it’s the ‘Merry Christmas Polka,’” marveled the radio. “I haven’t heard that for years. April 11, oops, excuse me, April 12 is a strange time of year to be playing Christmas music.”

“I’ve heard from some of the other balloons,” said the Mylar balloon, “that the stores start decorating for Christmas earlier every year. But April does seem to be pushing it.”

The polka came to an end, and off in the distance a light came on, aimed right at the appliances. There was a tiny Toot! Toot! and the light started coming closer.

“It’s a railroad train,” said the toaster, “but it must be very far away.”

“Perhaps,” the hearing aid speculated, “what early astronomers mistook for canals on Mars were actually railroad tracks.”

In fact, the train was not far away at all. It was simply very small—a toy train, the toaster realized as the lights of a miniature railway station lit up to reveal the train and its passengers, a small choir of white-gowned angels with silvery hair.

The angels of the Welcoming Committee alighted from the toy train and took their places on the tiers of a platform erected just to the side of the railway station. Then, at a gesture from the choir’s director (it was Tinselina), they opened their songbooks and began to sing:

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