Read Online Can and Can'tankerous by Harlan Ellison (R) - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Harlan Ellison (R)
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the Echidna’s grandchildren.
The echidna lives faraway at the bottom of the world, mostly rolled up in a ball. Is it bothered? Certainly not.
But not one of those ungrateful kids calls, sends a card, even during the High Holy Days. But, hey, listen, like a Brillo pad, that’s what’s got to be a mother’s heart. I’ll just lie here belly-up in the dark.
F is for FENRIS
The deep core rig went down five miles into the Ross Shelf. When the fiber optic snorkel cameras ringing the drill burned out, they withdrew. At the base of the core sample, in the block of ice eight feet across and fifteen feet deep, they found what had blinded the instruments.
Frozen in ice was a gigantic wolf.
When they swung the section overhead on the gigantic pneumatic crane, they understood what had scorched the optics: the beast, trailing a broken chain, was giving off heat and light. Its body glowed from within, and the ice melted, showering on the drilling crew and geologists. The block slipped its moorings, crashed to the ground, and shattered. The wolf shook itself massively, its evil green eyes surveying the terrified crew. Then it threw back its head, howled at the bright sky, and loped away to the north.
But if this is Ragnarok, and Fenris has swallowed the sun…
Whose eye continues to burn down upon us?
G is for GOD
GOD is an acronym for Good Old Demon.
This good old demon’s name is Bernie.
Bernie is your basic good old boy demon.
Bernie owns Texas.
They say there is no god in Texas.
Boy, are they wrong.
H is for HIPPOGRIFF
The metaphor. From Virgil. “To cross griffins with horses.” Meaning: to attempt the impossible.
The metaphor. A small, unruly beast with paper breath and bones of conjecture. The metaphor, like the hippogriff, of mixed parentage. The date-rape of logic by surmise. When the metaphor takes wing, it is with a rush of sound such as one hears only when phantom locomotives play sackbut, lyre, and symbol.
The hippogriff slides through the tawny waters, warfling and wobbling. Hear the song of the hippogriff: etymology in the key of skeleton.
I is for ILITHYIA
It was in all the papers. In Minnesota, the midwife Ilithyia was brought up on charges for performing unlicensed abortions. The trial was a sensation. The jury was composed entirely of men. When they brought in the verdict guilty, and the members of the Right to Life League stood up to cheer, Ilithyia said, “Ah, screw it,” and smote them hip and thigh with bolts of chartreuse lightning.
This year, Minnesota goes Pro-Choice.
J is for JACKALOPE
Texas, again. Land of myth and wonder. Home of a million private lives. The choking Doberman. The kitten in the microwave. The jackalope.
Yankees think the jackalope was the invention of a guy who wanted to sell big brag postcards—here’s one of our oranges, it says, and it’s a painting of a watermelon-sized Navel—the crossing of a jack rabbit with an antelope. Huge hind legs that permit the beast to go like a sonofabitch on fire! Huge ears flattened by the wind as it races eighty miles an hour across the Panhandle.
That’s a lot the damned Yankees know.
Down here in Nacogdoches we know better. Just ask Joe Lansdale. Joe was stalked and damned near killed by a rabid jackalope maybe two, three years ago. Only saved himself at the last moment by using the one weapon that can kill a jackalope.
He stabbed it through the heart with a Stuckey pecan praline.
K is for KELPIE
It was late, well past the hour in which they closed the pool. But Hester had gotten special dispensation from the building’s management. Not only because she was an administrative assistant at Chicago Sky Tower, and thus entitled to a few minor privileges, but because she had spent the past three days, almost without break, reorganizing the database: the condo owners on floors fifty through ninety-five, their dependants and hired help, anyone cleared for access to the
The echidna lives faraway at the bottom of the world, mostly rolled up in a ball. Is it bothered? Certainly not.
But not one of those ungrateful kids calls, sends a card, even during the High Holy Days. But, hey, listen, like a Brillo pad, that’s what’s got to be a mother’s heart. I’ll just lie here belly-up in the dark.
F is for FENRIS
The deep core rig went down five miles into the Ross Shelf. When the fiber optic snorkel cameras ringing the drill burned out, they withdrew. At the base of the core sample, in the block of ice eight feet across and fifteen feet deep, they found what had blinded the instruments.
Frozen in ice was a gigantic wolf.
When they swung the section overhead on the gigantic pneumatic crane, they understood what had scorched the optics: the beast, trailing a broken chain, was giving off heat and light. Its body glowed from within, and the ice melted, showering on the drilling crew and geologists. The block slipped its moorings, crashed to the ground, and shattered. The wolf shook itself massively, its evil green eyes surveying the terrified crew. Then it threw back its head, howled at the bright sky, and loped away to the north.
But if this is Ragnarok, and Fenris has swallowed the sun…
Whose eye continues to burn down upon us?
G is for GOD
GOD is an acronym for Good Old Demon.
This good old demon’s name is Bernie.
Bernie is your basic good old boy demon.
Bernie owns Texas.
They say there is no god in Texas.
Boy, are they wrong.
H is for HIPPOGRIFF
The metaphor. From Virgil. “To cross griffins with horses.” Meaning: to attempt the impossible.
The metaphor. A small, unruly beast with paper breath and bones of conjecture. The metaphor, like the hippogriff, of mixed parentage. The date-rape of logic by surmise. When the metaphor takes wing, it is with a rush of sound such as one hears only when phantom locomotives play sackbut, lyre, and symbol.
The hippogriff slides through the tawny waters, warfling and wobbling. Hear the song of the hippogriff: etymology in the key of skeleton.
I is for ILITHYIA
It was in all the papers. In Minnesota, the midwife Ilithyia was brought up on charges for performing unlicensed abortions. The trial was a sensation. The jury was composed entirely of men. When they brought in the verdict guilty, and the members of the Right to Life League stood up to cheer, Ilithyia said, “Ah, screw it,” and smote them hip and thigh with bolts of chartreuse lightning.
This year, Minnesota goes Pro-Choice.
J is for JACKALOPE
Texas, again. Land of myth and wonder. Home of a million private lives. The choking Doberman. The kitten in the microwave. The jackalope.
Yankees think the jackalope was the invention of a guy who wanted to sell big brag postcards—here’s one of our oranges, it says, and it’s a painting of a watermelon-sized Navel—the crossing of a jack rabbit with an antelope. Huge hind legs that permit the beast to go like a sonofabitch on fire! Huge ears flattened by the wind as it races eighty miles an hour across the Panhandle.
That’s a lot the damned Yankees know.
Down here in Nacogdoches we know better. Just ask Joe Lansdale. Joe was stalked and damned near killed by a rabid jackalope maybe two, three years ago. Only saved himself at the last moment by using the one weapon that can kill a jackalope.
He stabbed it through the heart with a Stuckey pecan praline.
K is for KELPIE
It was late, well past the hour in which they closed the pool. But Hester had gotten special dispensation from the building’s management. Not only because she was an administrative assistant at Chicago Sky Tower, and thus entitled to a few minor privileges, but because she had spent the past three days, almost without break, reorganizing the database: the condo owners on floors fifty through ninety-five, their dependants and hired help, anyone cleared for access to the
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