Stories From The Old Attic by Robert Harris (best novels for beginners .txt) 📕

it, pinch it, wrench it.” When she stopped to attend to his interruption, he noticed that her hair was rubber banded into a vertical column on top of her head.

The young man was sitting off to one side, wearing jeans and a T-shirt printed with the words, “None of the Above.” Nearby was an open ream of copier paper, many sheets of which he had evidently wrinkled up into a ball and tossed at a trash can a few feet away, with highly indifferent accuracy. A few of the sheets had been written on with multicolored felt-tip pens and placed carelessly in several piles.

“What’s going on here?” demanded the Vice President.

“We work here,” said the young man.

“Not any more you don’t,” said the Vice President sternly. “Just what do you think you’re doing, anyway?”

“We’re working on the new Blister DLX,” said the young woman.

“I don’t see any work being done here,” the Vice President shot back.

“We’re thinking,” the young woman said.

“This doesn’t look like thinking to me.”

“Oh? And what does thinking look like to you?” asked the young man.

“Well, it certainly doesn’t look like this. This is goofing off—and stop wasting that paper. Who are you, anyway?”

“I’m Scott and this is Tina,” the young man said. “We’re creative analysts. We’re working on cost-cutting ideas.”

“Cost cutting?” sneered the Vice President. “You don’t even have a calculator. And besides, we’ve got engineers and accountants to cut costs, so even if you were doing that, you’d be either superfluous or redundant. I want you out of the plant by this afternoon.”

That afternoon Scott and Tina went to the Vice President’s office. As Scott stretched out on the floor and began to spread out a few papers, Tina pushed aside many feet of adding machine tape and sat in the Lotus position on one end of the Vice President’s desk. The Vice President was not quite so upset that he did not notice that Tina was wearing earrings made from crumpled balls of paper hanging from bent paper clips. “We’d like to ask you to reconsider your firing us,” said Tina. “We have some good ideas for the Blister.”

“Get out,” said the Vice President.

The next day all the executives met at a regularly scheduled administrative meeting, where there seemed to be some confusion and delay in getting started. Finally, the President of the company spoke up. “I’m sorry for the delay,” he said, “but we had scheduled a report on cost saving ideas by two of our top creative analysts and it now appears that some idiot fired them yesterday. However, we are in the process of getting everything straightened out, and they should be here soon.”

“I hope it’s Scott and Tina,” one of the other executives said. “They’re really brilliant.”

“If unconventional,” noted another.

“Unconventional or not,” said the Chief Operating Officer, “I’ll never forget how they saved us eighty-six million dollars on the Dazzle II by helping us reduce the number of parts. And when their expense account came through, all they’d bought were radio batteries and a couple of reams of paper.”

“I remember that,” said the first executive. “No fancy research, no costly experiments, just pure thought, just great ideas. They actually know how to think.”

“What kind of a jerk would fire people like that?” someone asked.

And so it was that the new Vice President for Design Concepts was invited to take his skills to some other company, even though he could recite the exact cost of every part of every car the corporation made.

 

The Wall and the Bridge

In the high country of a far away land there once stood a massive wall, blocking the pass between two mountains. Just below the wall was a path leading around the mountains—a path made possible by a bridge connecting it across a deep chasm directly in front of the wall.

Now, the wall and the bridge were always bickering. One day when an old peddler leading an even older mule with a load of shabby wares crossed the bridge on the way to a distant fair, the wall said to the bridge, “You know, the trouble with you is that you have absolutely no discretion. You let just anyone walk over you. In fact, you’re the slut of architectural forms, granting promiscuous entry to all and sundry.”

“Is the greenness I see all over you moss or envy?” replied the bridge. “I enable people to fulfill their dreams; I provide opportunity for a better life. You’re just an obstructionist, but I’m a facilitator—a metaphor for access, for hope, for possibility.”

On another day a young maiden fleeing evil men ran across the rocks until she reached the wall where she could go no farther. She cried out and pounded her fists against the wall in despair until the men caught up with her and carried her away. The bridge then said to the wall in disgust, “You once accused me of having no discretion, but you are worse, for you are completely heartless. You’re so cold and rigid that you cruelly prevent even the distressed and needy from passing by. Maybe that’s why walls are known everywhere as symbols of ‘No!’ while we bridges are known as symbols of ‘Yes!’”

“You, my loose and easy friend,” said the wall, “indeed let the distressed pass, but you also let the criminals pass. I, on the other hand, provide the needed security to keep the land behind me safe from harm. I am a protector, and I defend this pass and the country well.”

This dialogue continued for many years until one morning when suddenly the earth shook with great violence. So strong was the tremor that both the wall and the bridge were reduced to rubble at the bottom of the chasm. Not many months later men came to repair the damage. In the process of reconstruction, however, the stones that were once part of the bridge were used to rebuild the wall and the stones that were once part of the wall were used to rebuild the bridge.

“Now I’ll show you what a wall should really be like,” said the new wall. “It shouldn’t be cold and rejecting to everybody.” And so at first, the new wall let many people climb up over it.

“And I’ll show you what a bridge should do,” said the new bridge. “It shouldn’t let just anybody across.” And so at first, the new bridge provided a difficult passage, causing many travelers to trip on the surface and a few even to fall over the edge.

But as spring and summer, harvest and winter came and went again and again, the rocks on the new wall grew more and more slippery and the little projections gradually broke away, so that climbing over or even getting a foothold became very difficult. And in the same passage of time, the rough spots on the new bridge wore down and the crevices filled up, so that passage across became much easier.

“You see,” said the new bridge to the new wall, “you’ve learned something about being a wall.”

“Well,” the new wall replied, “I’ve known all along that I must guard the pass and fortify the defenses of the country. And of course I know it’s my job to keep out all those who don’t belong. But I see you’ve finally discovered how to be a bridge.”

“You can say what you like,” answered the new bridge. “But I’ve always understood that I provide a critical link in the path around the mountains, and that my purpose is to help travelers across the gorge.”

As the years collected, as years do, the new bridge and the new wall began to think less and less about what they had once been and more and more about the task they currently had to do, until eventually it became impossible for anyone to tell that the new wall had once been a bridge or that the new bridge had once been a wall.

“How indiscriminate and common you are,” the new wall would often tell the new bridge.

“And how inflexible and repressive you are,” the new bridge would reply.

 

The Wish

While walking along the beach one day, a man spotted an old, barnacle-covered object which on closer examination he discovered to be an ancient bronze oil lamp. “Hah! Aladdin’s lamp,” he thought, jokingly. “I’ll rub it.” To his surprise, when he did rub it, a genie appeared.

“Okay, Bud,” said the genie, in a remarkably bored tone. “You have one wish—anything you want. What is it?”

“Money,” the man said instantly, his eyes widening. “Yes! Endless money. Riches! Wealth! Ha! Ha! Huge, massive, obscene wealth!”

“I thought so,” said the genie in the same bored tone.

“No, wait,” the man said, his eyes suddenly narrowing. “Power. Yeah, that’s it. Complete and total power over everyone and everything in the world. With power I could get all the money I wanted.”

“So you want power, huh?” asked the genie.

“Well, yes,” said the man, now a bit hesitant because of the genie’s less-than-enthusiastic tone. “Of course, with money I suppose I could buy power. Which do you think I should ask for, Genie?”

“How about world peace or personal humility or an end to famine or maybe an end to greed,” suggested the genie, emphasizing the last phrase. “Or perhaps the gift of discernment or knowledge or spiritual enlightenment or even simple happiness.”

“But with money or power I could buy or command all those,” objected the man.

“Yeah, sure,” said the genie.

“Well, just give me power and I’ll show you that I can have everything else, too.”

“You shall have what you ask,” said the genie resignedly. “Whether you shall have what you imagine you must learn for yourself, and you will soon find out.”

“Well, I certainly hope to have it all. Don’t you ever hope, Genie?”

“Yes,” said the genie. “I hope that someday my lamp will fall into the hands of a wise man.”

And so the man was given power over everything on earth, over every government, every event, every activity of every soul. As a result, his name was soon pronounced with hatred and contempt by everyone, and in a few months he was assassinated by his most trusted followers.

 

Several One Way Conversations

“Yes, they are shackles, but they are made of gold,” said the man, as he asked for another pair on his wrists and two more on his ankles.

 

*

 

“You can see how great I am by observing what I have done,” said the chisel to the other tools, as they gazed upon the beautiful statue.

 

*

 

“My word is as good as my check,” said the forger, as he handed over partial payment and promised to pay the balance later.

 

*

 

“May you get everything you want,” said the philosopher to his enemy, knowing that his enemy would not recognize his words as a curse.

 

*

 

“I’ll teach this dirt not to muddy my shoes,” said the man, shoveling madly, only soon to discover himself in a pit.

 

*

 

“Now I see how essential material things are,” said the man, as he looked at the ashes of his burned down house.

 

*

 

“How dare you, who are nothing but a low worm, try to tell me what to do,” said the man, as he stood there unmoving, just before the piano landed on him.

 

How the King Learned about Love

Back in the days of knights and chivalry and courtly love, a beautiful young woman fell in love with a man of noble birth, who, however, was already married. Their love continued