Read Online Bill 4 - on the Planet of Tasteless Pleasure by Harry Harrison - Free Book Online
Authors: Harry Harrison
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fate. There is, I am forced to say, no sign of disintegration, and certainly none of disappearance.”
Baffled, Bill opened reluctant eyes and looked at his wrists. Hands. Two. Both in place.
“What kind of bowb is this?!” Bill howled in relief. “What's wrong with me? I'm going mad, I tell you, mad!”
“Let us do try not to overdramatize this late at night.”
“Yes, I'm sorry.” Bill's teeth chattered as he explained to Captain Rick the feelings of unreality he'd been experiencing lately. Since Bill was particularly frazzled and looked as though he wasn't going to get much sleep that night, Captain Rick treated him to a glass of warm soy milk with honey and mustard and rum. Guaranteed to cure anything. Or at least to take your mind off your troubles as you retched your guts out. It was a measure of Bill's distraction that he actually ingested the atrocious concoction and held his glass out for seconds.
“Arrrrr!” Captain Rick agreed, shaking his long locks. “I know what you mean, mate. I get that feeling from time to time meself. It's a strange life, it is. I'm just hoping I get me answers to me questions that have haunted me lo! these many years at the Holy Bar and Grill.”
“Questions. What are your questions?”
"Why, the eternal questions of the Philosophers, of course, Bill me lad. The riddles that have haunted mankind since the ancient days, e'en before distilling was invented, which must have meant a pretty grim world.
"Namely, who came first, flying saucers or Raymond Palmer? Or, its logical corollary, did Raymond Palmer come from a Flying Saucer?
"Two, which came first, the chicken or the Western Omelette with home fries on the side?
"Three, if a tree falls in the woods, and there's no one there to hear it, does it fall upwards or downwards? And its corollary, if a deaf man falls in the wood, does he make a sound?
"Four, does God exist, and if he (or she) does why does drinking too much eventually kill you, why does sex produce disease and finally why can I never get good tickets for the Galactic World Series?
“And finally, Bill, the real stumper, what is the meaning of life, why is a man born, why does he live, and why does he die — and where the hell can I get a good bottle of Pepto Abysmal for Archimedes. I'm getting sick of the smell of parrot bowb all over the place.”
Bill's head reeled at the depth of these philosophical questions. Incredible! Profound! It was all too much for him, so he asked for another soy milk and pyech to obfuscate the implications aborning in his head.
To relax him further, Captain Rick told him his story.
CAPTAIN RICK'S TALE
or
“Stars in My Handkerchief Like Clumps of Green Gunk”
to unwind the digital alarm clock.
So ginsberged out for the universe to give him a moniker.
The sub-voice answered with an eructation.
Belched forth the answer: Kid, you sniveling cyberrunt bratshit, what the bowb do I care? Captain Kid, Captain Rick, career astronauts and beats with bongos pound and sound forth the international anthems, and sheesh! the price of bananas in Nicaragua has skyrocketed, and elevator operators grease their asses with their thumbs, and Walden's and Dalton's are really down on Pynchon-hitters lately, so what why should I give a good Gesundheit? Anyway, I got this mouthful of cold espresso in my mouth, and hell if I know why? Jesus! Ptoui! Tastes dreadful!
Another minute Kid squatted on the Johnny-on-the-Spot, clutching his New York Review of Books and Little Magazine toilet paper, listening to his heaving breath and kerouac inner-music.
Beyond leafy trees, moonlight painted, wallpapered and interior decorated strips of fashionable West Village light in the forest.
He rubbed poetry across his bum. Somewhere in Soho (or maybe Tribeca) an art gallery opens a William Burroughs shotgun art show. The whole city has turned into skyscraper after skyscraper of art galleries in this fiction-turned-semirealscape of stranger-than-real gangs
Baffled, Bill opened reluctant eyes and looked at his wrists. Hands. Two. Both in place.
“What kind of bowb is this?!” Bill howled in relief. “What's wrong with me? I'm going mad, I tell you, mad!”
“Let us do try not to overdramatize this late at night.”
“Yes, I'm sorry.” Bill's teeth chattered as he explained to Captain Rick the feelings of unreality he'd been experiencing lately. Since Bill was particularly frazzled and looked as though he wasn't going to get much sleep that night, Captain Rick treated him to a glass of warm soy milk with honey and mustard and rum. Guaranteed to cure anything. Or at least to take your mind off your troubles as you retched your guts out. It was a measure of Bill's distraction that he actually ingested the atrocious concoction and held his glass out for seconds.
“Arrrrr!” Captain Rick agreed, shaking his long locks. “I know what you mean, mate. I get that feeling from time to time meself. It's a strange life, it is. I'm just hoping I get me answers to me questions that have haunted me lo! these many years at the Holy Bar and Grill.”
“Questions. What are your questions?”
"Why, the eternal questions of the Philosophers, of course, Bill me lad. The riddles that have haunted mankind since the ancient days, e'en before distilling was invented, which must have meant a pretty grim world.
"Namely, who came first, flying saucers or Raymond Palmer? Or, its logical corollary, did Raymond Palmer come from a Flying Saucer?
"Two, which came first, the chicken or the Western Omelette with home fries on the side?
"Three, if a tree falls in the woods, and there's no one there to hear it, does it fall upwards or downwards? And its corollary, if a deaf man falls in the wood, does he make a sound?
"Four, does God exist, and if he (or she) does why does drinking too much eventually kill you, why does sex produce disease and finally why can I never get good tickets for the Galactic World Series?
“And finally, Bill, the real stumper, what is the meaning of life, why is a man born, why does he live, and why does he die — and where the hell can I get a good bottle of Pepto Abysmal for Archimedes. I'm getting sick of the smell of parrot bowb all over the place.”
Bill's head reeled at the depth of these philosophical questions. Incredible! Profound! It was all too much for him, so he asked for another soy milk and pyech to obfuscate the implications aborning in his head.
To relax him further, Captain Rick told him his story.
CAPTAIN RICK'S TALE
or
“Stars in My Handkerchief Like Clumps of Green Gunk”
to unwind the digital alarm clock.
So ginsberged out for the universe to give him a moniker.
The sub-voice answered with an eructation.
Belched forth the answer: Kid, you sniveling cyberrunt bratshit, what the bowb do I care? Captain Kid, Captain Rick, career astronauts and beats with bongos pound and sound forth the international anthems, and sheesh! the price of bananas in Nicaragua has skyrocketed, and elevator operators grease their asses with their thumbs, and Walden's and Dalton's are really down on Pynchon-hitters lately, so what why should I give a good Gesundheit? Anyway, I got this mouthful of cold espresso in my mouth, and hell if I know why? Jesus! Ptoui! Tastes dreadful!
Another minute Kid squatted on the Johnny-on-the-Spot, clutching his New York Review of Books and Little Magazine toilet paper, listening to his heaving breath and kerouac inner-music.
Beyond leafy trees, moonlight painted, wallpapered and interior decorated strips of fashionable West Village light in the forest.
He rubbed poetry across his bum. Somewhere in Soho (or maybe Tribeca) an art gallery opens a William Burroughs shotgun art show. The whole city has turned into skyscraper after skyscraper of art galleries in this fiction-turned-semirealscape of stranger-than-real gangs
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