Sorry: Wrong Dimension

So the baby had a pet monster. And so nobody but baby could see it. And so a couple of men dropped out of thin air to check and see if the monster was licensed or not. So what's strange about that?
Baby didn't cry all day, because he had a monster for a playmate. But I didn't know he had a playmate, and much less did I know it was a monster. The honest truth is that for the first time since baby was born, I had my nerves under control, and I didn't dare investigate why he wasn't crying. I got all the ironing done—all of it, mind you—and I got Harry's work-clothes mended and I also read three installments of a Saturday Evening Post serial I'd been saving. And besides this Mabel, my neighbor, and I had a couple or three cups of coffee. We also had a giggling fit. I remember once we went off into hysterics at the picture of ourselves we had—two haggard old wrecks of women, worn out at twenty-three from too much work around the house. But thank Heavens baby hasn't cried all day! I gurgled when we came out of it.
Neither has mine, said Mabel, who isn't due for six months.
Mabel, honest, you kill me, I said, and excuse me while I comb my messy hair—because I'm not a wreck. Harry said so. He says I'm still the best hunk of female pulchritude he's met since high school—and we've been married two years!
I went into the bathroom leaving Mabel choking hysterically behind me. When I came out of the bathroom, she was hysterical but in a different way. She'd discovered why Harry, Jr., wasn't crying. She'd been in the nursery. Her face was white as an egg-shell.
He's playing with something, she chattered. It's alive . I heard it cooing back.
I ran three steps to baby's crib ... one on the corner of Little Jack Horner, one on the sheep of Little Bo Peep, one on the cupboard of Old Mother Hubbard. Baby! I almost screamed. But baby cooed and gurgled and laughed and rocked back and forth on his diapers. He was playing with his teething ring, but something was trying to jerk the teething ring out of his hands. And baby liked it.

Ross Rocklynne
Страница

О книге

Язык

Английский

Год издания

2009-08-05

Темы

Science fiction; Short stories

Reload 🗙