Read Online Jim and the Flims by Rudy Rucker - Free Book Online

my soft stubble. “I have to reshelve things one by one. I’m like—oh, that’s a shovel, that’s a pot holder, that’s a quartz crystal, that’s my first day of nursery school.”
    â€œShelves,” mused Weena. She was wearing a black denim miniskirt with platform flip-flops and a long-sleeved red cotton jersey. “I often classify things by colors. Like ice-cream flavors. In my mind, I have all the cornflower blue things on one shelf, all the turmeric yellows on another, all the thistle greens on another, and so forth. I learned thousands of different color names at my job today. The manger let me explore with her computer. How far they’ve come. I memorized an online color dictionary from the National Bureau of Standards.”
    â€œYou have that good a memory?”
    â€œThanks to my jiva. You unaugmented people hardly use your brains at all. Just wait until you acquire a jiva like me.”
    â€œI—I don’t know about any of that,” I said, wanting to steer the conversation back to something comprehensible. I pointed at a spot on my wood floor. “So, uh, what color is this ?”
    â€œCapucine buff,” said Weena. “With shadings of mustard and barium yellow.”
    On the fourth day of Weena’s residence, I went down to the beach for a long walk. It soothed me to stare at the waves and at the curves of the seaweed on the sand. When I came home in the late afternoon, Weena had someone else in our bedroom with her. I could hear that they were having sex. I went shaky all over, with my chest feeling hollow.
    I threw a chair across the kitchen so they’d know I was home, and then I went out on our little front porch and started putting an edge my biggest carving knife, using a sharpening iron that made a sinister slithery sound.
    A minute or two later I heard voices from the house, and then the sound of the bedroom window opening. Someone exited unseen and ran away. And now Weena appeared on the porch, wearing shorts and a T-shirt.
    â€œAre you contemplating a psychotic rampage?” she asked, half smiling. Her eyes were watchful.
    â€œI want you to know that I’m taking this very seriously.” I set down the knife. “Don’t you love me, Weena?”
    â€œWe’ve never spoken of love. Perhaps I thought you’d find it titillating if I bedded a stranger? In this manner presenting myself as a fallen woman of loose morals?” She gave me a mocking smile.
    â€œDon’t, Weena. I—I’ve grown very attached to you. Who was the guy?”
    â€œDick Simly. Your landlord.” Weena put on a contrite expression and walked over to me. “Oh, Jim, I comprehend your chagrin. No more teasing. I bedded this Dick Simly for a simple and practical reason. I was implanting eggs in his flesh.” She bucked her belly gently. “With my ovipositor. These are a very fast-growing kind of egg. Quite soon they’ll hatch. Three of them.”
    â€œYou’re crazy,” I said. But I sort of had to laugh. Weena was a step beyond spacy, that was for sure. But... ovipositor? Yuck. She was kidding, right?
    I really didn’t know what to think. And I didn’t feel like talking it over with Weena. That night I slept on the sofa.
    The next morning, after Weena left for work, Diane Simly came over from her house and struck up a conversation with me. It was the first time she’d spoken to me since I’d gone to the hospital.
    â€œHow are you feeling, Jim? I’ve been so busy lately. But truly we’re concerned about you.”
    â€œThey say I had a kind of electrical storm in my brain, and it scrambled some of my nerve connections. But I’m getting it back together.”
    â€œWas the attack, ah, brought on by, by—” She probably wanted to ask if I used meth.
    â€œJust the luck of the draw,” I said blandly. “I’m very clean-living. Look at my stomach. Feel the