The R.A. Lafferty Fantastic by R.A. Lafferty

Author:R.A. Lafferty [Lafferty, R.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, fantasy, horror, slipstream, short stories
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2016-03-29T16:00:00+00:00

TRY TO REMEMBER

Originally published in Collage Magazine, December 1960/January 1961.

1.

It isn’t that professors are absent-minded. That is a canard, a joke thought up by somebody who should have been better employed. The fact is that sometimes professors have great presence of mind; they have to have. The fact is that professors are (or should be) very busy and thoughtful men, and that they are forced in the interests of time and efficiency to relegate the unessentials to the background.

Professor—what was that blamed name again?—well anyway, he had done so, he had swept all the unessentials quite out of the way. He carried a small black book prepared by his wife (it must have been his wife) in which all the unessential details of his regime were written down for his guidance and to save him time. On the cover were the words “Try to Remember,” and inside was information copious and handy.

He picked it up now, from the table in front of him, and opened it.

“You are professor J. F. E. Diller,” he read. “The J is for John. There is no use in burdening your mind with the meaning of the other two initials. You are known to your students as Killer Diller for no good reason beyond euphony, and you are called by me “Moxie” for my own reasons.

“You teach Middle Mayan Archeology. Please don’t try to teach anything else. You don’t know anything else. Your schedule is as follows:— But before you examine it, always look at your watch. It shows both the day of the week and the time of the day. It is on your left wrist. The best way I can tell you which is your left wrist is to say that it is the one that your watch is on.”

And there followed the schedule with times and classes and building and room number, and indications as to whether the class was elementary or middle or advanced, and which text was used, Boch, or Mendoza y Carriba, or Strohspalter. And below the class schedule were other varied notes.

“You like every kind of meat except liver. Don’t order it. You think you like it but you don’t. You are always fearfully disappointed when you try to eat it. Eat anything else; you fortunately do not have to watch your calories. You drink Cuba Libres. Never take more than four drinks at one session, they make you so nutty. There is a little drink-counter in your left-hand pants pocket that I made for you. Flip it every time that you have a drink. When you have had four, it will not flip again; so come on home. The best way I can tell you which is your left-hand pants pocket is that it is the one your drink-counter is in.”

There was much more. The professor looked at his watch, looked at his schedule, saw that he still had a little time before his final class, glanced at the final entry in the book, “I love you, Emily,” smiled, closed the small notebook, and put it in his pocket.

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