H.P. Lovecraft's "The Mound" | Full Cinematic Adaptation AI

"I Want to Push a Tractor," she said

 I Want to Push a Chicken Tractor,

(from my book, "The Surprised Cow...")

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        (My then-wife and I lived on a mini-farm in Boaz, Alabama for two+ years. We raised chickens for eggs and food. During that time, this conversation between us took place: She’s ‘C’ and I’m ‘M’. It was the City Boy and the Country Girl.)

 

        When she first told me she wanted a tractor, I was a bit taken back. We only had a 3-acre pasture, and it wasn’t for growing anything; rather, it was for some large animals if we had them—which we later did, with llama and some horses. But it was the dialogue that followed which had me floored: She wanted a tractor. And she said she wanted to push it!

 

        She was tall but not obviously that strong, I thought. And besides: what was a chicken tractor? It was when she told me why she wanted it—and what she was going to do—that had me totally bewildered. “I want to put the chickens in the tractor. And then I’ll push it around.” I thought, “She can push a tractor? By herself? What superwoman strength does she have?!”

 

C: "But I want a tractor for the chickens."

M: "A what? A tractor?"

C: "Yes, a chicken tractor."

M: "What do the chickens do: operate it and plow the field?"

C: "No, they go inside of it."

M: (Desperately) “Are these mechanical chickens or something?"

C: "No, I can move them around the back yard."

M: "You can drive a tractor?"

C: "No, I can push it. It has handles.”

M: (Incredulously):

“YOU CAN PUSH A TRACTOR??!

BY ITS HANDLES??!!”

C: “You don't understand. It's a box, with wire around it, and handles.

I can keep the chickens inside.

I can move it.”

M: "But it doesn't do anything else."

C: "That's right."

M: "It's just a box."

C: "Yes. With wire."

(That part made sense at last, but she really had me cooped up there for a minute.)

(Know what's REALLY strange? I don't know that woman in the picture, but I can sure tell those are Alabama pecan trees. And that SURE looks like it could have been my home.)

 

Words of wisdom from Adam and Eve (and Mark Twain)

Words of wisdom from the Original First Lady, Eve, by way of Mark Twain, from Letters from the Earth.

 From "Extract of Eve's Autobiography"

But studying, learning, inquiring into the cause and nature and purpose of everything we came across, were passions with us, and this research filled our days with brilliant and absorbing interest. Adam was by constitution and proclivity a scientist; I may justly say I was the same, and we loved to call ourselves by that great name. Each was ambitious to beat the other in scientific discovery, and this incentive added a spur to our friendly rivalry, and effectively protected us against falling into idle and unprofitable ways and frivolous pleasure-seeking.

Our first memorable scientific discovery was the law that water and like fluids run downhill, not up. It was Adam that found this out. Days and days he conducted his experiments secretly, saying nothing to me about it; for he wanted to make perfectly sure before he spoke. I knew something of prime importance was disturbing his great intellect, for his repose was troubled and he thrashed about in his sleep a good deal. But at last he was sure, and then he told me. I could not believe it, it seemed so strange, so impossible. My astonishment was his triumph, his reward. He took me from rill to rill -- dozens of them -- saying always, "There -- you see it runs downhill -- in every case it runs downhill, never up. My theory was right; it is proven, it is established, nothing can controvert it." And it was a pure delight to see his exultation in this great discovery.

In the present day no child wonders to see the water run down and not up, but it was an amazing thing then, and as hard to believe as any fact I have ever encountered.

You see, that simple matter had been under my eyes from the day I was made, but I had never happened to notice it. It took me some time to accept it and adjust myself to it, and for a long time I could not see a running stream without voluntarily or involuntarily taking note of the dip of the surface, half expecting to see Adam's law violated; but at last I was convinced and remained so; and from that day forth I should have been startled and perplexed to see a waterfall going up the wrong way. Knowledge has to be acquired by hard work; none of it is flung at our heads gratis.

That law was Adam's first great contribution to science; and for more than two centuries it went by his name -- Adam's Law of Fluidic Precipitation. Anybody could get on the soft side of him by dropping a casual compliment or two about it in his hearing.

He was a good deal inflated -- I will not try to conceal it -- but not spoiled. Nothing ever spoiled him, he was so good and dear and right-hearted. He always put it by with a deprecating gesture, and said it was no great thing, some other scientist would have discovered it by and by; but all the same, if a visiting stranger had audience of him and was tactless enough to forget to mention it, it was noticeable that that stranger was not invited to call again. After a couple of centuries, the discovery of the law got into dispute, and was wrangled over by scientific bodies for as much as a century, the credit being finally given to a more recent person. It was a cruel blow. Adam was never the same man afterward. He carried that sorrow in his heart for six hundred years, and I have always believed that it shortened his life. Of course throughout his days he took precedence of kings and of all the race as First Man, and had the honors due to that great rank, but these distinctions could not compensate him for that lamented ravishment, for he was a true scientist and the First; and he confided to me, more than once, that if he could have kept the glory of Discoverer of the Law of Fluidic Precipitation he would have been content to pass as his own son and Second Man. I did what I could to comfort him. I said that as First Man his fame was secure; and that a time would come when the name of the pretended discoverer of the law that water runs downhill would fade and perish and be forgotten in the earth. And I believe that. I have never ceased to believe it. That day will surely come.

I scored the next great triumph for science myself: to wit, how the milk gets into the cow. Both of us had marveled over that mystery a long time. We had followed the cows around for years -- that is, in the daytime -- but had never caught them drinking a fluid of that color. And so, at last we said they undoubtedly procured it at night. Then we took turns and watched them by night. The result was the same -- the puzzle remained unsolved. These proceedings were of a sort to be expected in beginners, but one perceives, now, that they were unscientific. A time came when experience had taught us better methods. 

One night as I lay musing, and looking at the stars, a grand idea flashed through my head, and I saw my way! My first impulse was to wake Adam and tell him, but I resisted it and kept my secret. I slept no wink the rest of the night. The moment the first pale streak of dawn appeared I flitted stealthily away; and deep in the woods I chose "a small grassy spot and wattled it in, making a secure pen; then I enclosed a cow in it. I milked her dry, then left her there, a prisoner. There was nothing there to drink -- she must get milk by her secret alchemy, or stay dry.

All day I was in a fidget, and could not talk connectedly I was so preoccupied; but Adam was busy trying to invent a multiplication table, and did not notice. Toward sunset he had got as far as 6 times 9 are 27, and while he was drunk with the joy of his achievement and dead to my presence and all things else, I stole away to my cow. My hand shook so with excitement and with dread failure that for some moments I could not get a grip on a teat; then I succeeded, and the milk came! Two gallons. Two gallons, and nothing to make it out of. I knew at once the explanation: the milk was not taken in by the mouth, it was condensed from the atmosphere through the cow's hair. I ran and told Adam, and his happiness was as great as mine, and his pride in me inexpressible.

Presently he said, "Do you know, you have not made merely one weighty and far-reaching contribution to science, but two." And that was true. By a series of experiments we had long ago arrived at the conclusion that atmospheric air consisted of water in invisible suspension; also, that the components of water were hydrogen and oxygen, in the proportion of two parts of the former to one of the latter, and expressible by the symbol H2O. My discovery revealed the fact that there was still another ingredient -- milk. We enlarged the symbol to H2O,M.

INTERPOLATED EXTRACTS FROM "EVE'S DIARY"

Another discovery. One day I noticed that William McKinley was not looking well. He is the original first lion, and has been a pet of mine from the beginning. I examined him, to see what was the matter with him, and found that a cabbage which he had not chewed, had stuck in his throat. I was unable to pull it out, so I took the broomstick and rammed it home. This relieved him. In the course of my labors I had made him spread his jaws, so that I could look in, and I noticed that there was something peculiar about his teeth. I now subjected the teeth to careful and scientific examination, and the result was a consuming surprise: the lion is not a vegetarian, he is carnivorous, a flesh-eater! Intended for one, anyway.

I ran to Adam and told him, but of course he scoffed, saying, "Where would he find flesh?"

I had to grant that I didn't know.

"The Lady or the Tiger" and "The Necklace" revisited

I was recently asked if I could help a teacher with two short stories: could I make them into an easier-to-understand version for non-English-speaking students? Certainly! Please choose once again, the Lady or the Tiger, and decide whether or not "The Necklace" is worth the price.

Question for your essay: was it right that Marie and her husband made the decisions to replace the necklace and not tell the friend? Did Marie get what she wanted in life? Did her husband? Was it worth the effort? Did she learn her lesson? How and why or why not? Which Personal Motivating Factors do you think were at work in this story? Back up your answers with quotes and references to the story.

“The Necklace” (in summary) by Guy DeMaupassant 

Her name was Marie, and she was attractive and popular. But she had married a man who was just a clerk in a government office. He made a good salary that he gave to her each month, but not enough for what she wanted and desired.

She dreamed of the style and fashion of the rich, and he worked hard. They had a simple, modest life. He loved her, and denied nothing that she wished if it were possible. She wanted a home with servants, fine dishes, and crystal glasses: to live in a mansion—but it was far beyond their means, and only a dream. Then he brought her a surprise: an invitation to a fancy state dinner. To his confusion, she burst out crying: “No. We can’t go. I have nothing new to wear!” He replied, “But you have good clothes. You just bought a new dress last month.” Her answer: “I have nothing to decorate myself! Nothing special to add to it.” He thought carefully and then suggested, “Borrow some of your friend’s jewelry. You always admire it, and she is very generous.”

She spent her time searching for the perfect item at her friend’s home. Frustrated, she looked at one piece after another. “Have you nothing else?” she asked.  And then she saw a diamond necklace with a single large stone. “Could I borrow this?” she begged. “Of course,” answered the friend. “Help yourself.”

Marie was a sensation. All the men asked to dance with her, and her husband waited patiently for hours, finally falling asleep in a large chair. At last, it was time to go home. Marie was exhausted, but wanted one more look in the mirror. But wait! The diamond necklace—it was gone! Somehow, it had slipped off. Her husband was speechless. Finally, he said, “We will go to a jewelry store tomorrow and see if we can find a replacement. Ask your friend for a week’s delay—tell her it needs a small repair.” They did find an identical one: for $35,000! They were shocked: he barely made $500 a month, and they only had $2000 in savings. But they made an agreement. He could borrow the rest from friends and also finance it. The friend casually accepted the jewelry case from Marie and said nothing except “Glad you finally got your chance for fun.”

Marie and her husband were overcome by effort to pay the debt. The interest rate alone was a heavy burden, but it had to be done. She took jobs as a laundress, a cook, a maid, and a cleaning woman. He took on extra work as an accountant, and also spent nights copying letters by hand, and they saved whatever they could manage. She fought with everyone at the market. He repeatedly risked his credit. This went on for 10 years. And finally, it was all paid off.

She was no longer beautiful—her fingernails were hard like stone, her voice harsh and rough, and her face and skin dry and lacking care. He was a worn-out, beaten, older man now, with shoulders that bent like he carried something on them. All the effort of paying off the necklace had aged them beyond their years. Then one day, she allowed herself to go for a walk in the park along the fancy stores and shops. And there…she saw…her friend! She hesitated to approach her, but finally, she found the courage. The friend was puzzled at first by the old woman’s introduction, and then she realized who it was. “My dear Marie, what on earth happened to you? It was like you vanished years ago! No messages, no letters! Where have you been?” 

Marie stood proudly and said, “I have had a hard life since then. And it is all because of you!” Her friend said, “What do you mean? What did I do to you?”

Marie said, “Do you remember lending me a necklace for a fancy dinner I was attending? A large diamond in the middle? We lost the original, and we worked like animals for years to pay it back. The cost was frightful. And I look like this now! It is all your fault!”

Her friend said in amazement, “My fault? But you returned it! What do you mean?” Marie answered, “Yes! You did not even know the difference? All these years to replace it—a real diamond necklace--and we succeeded! I am proud we did it! It took every bit of all the money we made, but we paid it back. You are lucky we put so much effort into it. We made sure you got back your precious necklace!” And she smiled with satisfaction.

Her friend stared at her. “Oh, my poor dear. What do you mean? Why did you not say something? Didn’t you know? Why didn’t you ask? I never thought twice of it. That necklace was made of glass—it was imitation! At most, it was worth $50!”

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“The Lady or the Tiger?”

Once upon a time, there lived a king who ruled a large city-state. He had a strong sense of justice and fairness on his terms. His kingdom knew a great amount of prosperity and success, and his subjects were loyal to him. They worked hard, enjoyed their lives, and believed that they were the luckiest people in the world.

Except for those found guilty of a serious crime—and there were laws. There was a system of justice especially designed by the king that was both violent and effective. No one wanted to risk the form of punishment. The system of choice was both outrageous and very convincing. The person charged with a crime would decide themselves whether or not they would live happily after or die an immediate and painful death. There was no alternative.

The king had built a large stadium where all of his subjects could gather and watch below. The inside of the stadium had large walls: an arena (a small circle or square space) with two large wooden doors at one end. Each had a small chamber room that contained one object. Behind one door was a fierce and vicious tiger. And behind the other door was a handsome young man or a beautiful young woman. The door on the left or the door on the right would be opened by the person charged with a crime. 

Depending on what door they chose--that would be the answer. They would immediately be brought to a celebration to marry this person--or a tiger that would immediately tear them to pieces.

So a young man was now on trial for his life. He had dared to romance the king’s daughter, and she did love him dearly. But she had seen him with another woman—and she reported to her father that he had committed a serious crime. He was then put into the arena. He had done nothing wrong except a great risk in giving his love to the princess: the king’s daughter.

When the young man entered, he looked up at the seats and saw the princess. Only she knew which door was the right choice for him—and she carefully placed her right hand to her chin. He walked forward and opened that door.

Now, remember: she loved this man, but he had also deeply hurt her. But she did not want to lose him to another woman. But she did not want to see him torn to pieces either. She had grown up with this custom of punishment, and so had he. The choice was hers: the screams of the crowd’s celebrations or the screams of his agony and death. She knew that her father, the king, had established this form of justice. And as his only child, she would be expected to marry someone who would continue it.

The question for you to answer: in your view, which choice did she make for him? The Lady or the Tiger? Please explain why and how you came to that conclusion? Do you think the answer she chose was fair for herself? How about for her lover?

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"When the Buffalo Climbed a Tree" - Mark Twain

(Mark Twain was known as a man who could stretch the truth to limits that would seem impossible--but in his words, turn doubt to probability. Here is the tale of such a potential about "The Buffalo that Climbed a Tree.")

It did seem strange enough to see a town again after what appeared to us such a long acquaintance with deep, still, almost lifeless and houseless solitude! We tumbled out into the busy street feeling like meteoric people crumbled off the corner of some other world, and wakened up suddenly in this. For an hour we took as much interest in Overland City as if we had never seen a town before. The reason we had an hour to spare was because we had to change our stage (for a less sumptuous affair, called a "mud-wagon") and transfer our freight of mails.

Presently we got underway again. We came to the shallow, yellow, muddy South Platte, with its low banks and its scattering flat sand-bars and pigmy islands--a melancholy stream straggling through the centre of the enormous flat plain, and only saved from being impossible to find with the naked eye by its sentinel rank of scattering trees standing on either bank. The Platte was "up," they said--which made me wish I could see it when it was down, if it could look any sicker and sorrier. They said it was a dangerous stream to cross, now, because its quicksands were liable to swallow up horses, coach and passengers if an attempt was made to ford it. But the mails had to go, and we made the attempt. Once or twice in midstream the wheels sunk into the yielding sands so threateningly that we half believed we had dreaded and avoided the sea all our lives to be shipwrecked in a "mud-wagon" in the middle of a desert at last. But we dragged through and sped away toward the setting sun.

Next morning, just before dawn, when about five hundred and fifty miles from St. Joseph, our mud-wagon broke down. We were to be delayed five or six hours, and therefore we took horses, by invitation, and joined a party who were just starting on a buffalo hunt. It was noble sport galloping over the plain in the dewy freshness of the morning, but our part of the hunt ended in disaster and disgrace, for a wounded buffalo bull chased the passenger Bemis nearly two miles, and then he forsook his horse and took to a lone tree. He was very sullen about the matter for some twenty-four hours, but at last he began to soften little by little, and finally he said:

    "Well, it was not funny, and there was no sense in those gawks making themselves so facetious over it. I tell you I was angry in earnest for awhile. I should have shot that long gangly lubber they called Hank, if I could have done it without crippling six or seven other people--but of course I couldn't, the old 'Allen's' so confounded comprehensive. I wish those loafers had been up in the tree; they wouldn't have wanted to laugh so. If I had had a horse worth a cent--but no, the minute he saw that buffalo bull wheel on him and give a bellow, he raised straight up in the air and stood on his heels. The saddle began to slip, and I took him round the neck and laid close to him, and began to pray. Then he came down and stood up on the other end awhile, and the bull actually stopped pawing sand and bellowing to contemplate the inhuman spectacle.

"Then the bull made a pass at him and uttered a bellow that sounded perfectly frightful, it was so close to me, and that seemed to literally prostrate my horse's reason, and make a raving distracted maniac of him, and I wish I may die if he didn't stand on his head for a quarter of a minute and shed tears. He was absolutely out of his mind--he was, as sure as truth itself, and he really didn't know what he was doing. Then the bull came charging at us, and my horse dropped down on all fours and took a fresh start--and then for the next ten minutes he would actually throw one hand-spring after another so fast that the bull began to get unsettled, too, and didn't know where to start in--and so he stood there sneezing, and shoveling dust over his back, and bellowing every now and then, and thinking he had got a fifteen-hundred dollar circus horse for breakfast, certain. Well, I was first out on his neck--the horse's, not the bull's--and then underneath, and next on his rump, and sometimes head up, and sometimes heels--but I tell you it seemed solemn and awful to be ripping and tearing and carrying on so in the presence of death, as you might say. Pretty soon the bull made a snatch for us and brought away some of my horse's tail (I suppose, but do not know, being pretty busy at the time), but something made him hungry for solitude and suggested to him to get up and hunt for it.

"And then you ought to have seen that spider legged old skeleton go! and you ought to have seen the bull cut out after him, too--head down, tongue out, tail up, bellowing like everything, and actually mowing down the weeds, and tearing up the earth, and boosting up the sand like a whirlwind! By George, it was a hot race! I and the saddle were back on the rump, and I had the bridle in my teeth and holding on to the pommel with both hands. First we left the dogs behind; then we passed a jackass rabbit; then we overtook a coyote, and were gaining on an antelope when the rotten girth let go and threw me about thirty yards off to the left, and as the saddle went down over the horse's rump he gave it a lift with his heels that sent it more than four hundred yards up in the air, I wish I may die in a minute if he didn't. I fell at the foot of the only solitary tree there was in nine counties adjacent (as any creature could see with the naked eye), and the next second I had hold of the bark with four sets of nails and my teeth, and the next second after that I was astraddle of the main limb and blaspheming my luck in a way that made my breath smell of brimstone. I had the bull, now, if he did not think of one thing. But that one thing I dreaded. I dreaded it very seriously. There was a possibility that the bull might not think of it, but there were greater chances that he would. I made up my mind what I would do in case he did. It was a little over forty feet to the ground from where I sat. I cautiously unwound the lariat from the pommel of my saddle----"

"Your saddle? Did you take your saddle up in the tree with you?"

"Take it up in the tree with me? Why, how you talk. Of course I didn't. No man could do that. It fell in the tree when it came down."

"Oh--exactly."

"Certainly. I unwound the lariat, and fastened one end of it to the limb. It was the very best green raw-hide, and capable of sustaining tons. I made a slip-noose in the other end, and then hung it down to see the length. It reached down twenty-two feet--half way to the ground. I then loaded every barrel of the Allen with a double charge. I felt satisfied. I said to myself, if he never thinks of that one thing that I dread, all right--but if he does, all right anyhow--I am fixed for him. But don't you know that the very thing a man dreads is the thing that always happens? Indeed it is so. I watched the bull, now, with anxiety--anxiety which no one can conceive of who has not been in such a situation and felt that at any moment death might come. Presently a thought came into the bull's eye. I knew it! said I--if my nerve fails now, I am lost. Sure enough, it was just as I had dreaded, he started in to climb the tree----"

"What, the bull?"

"Of course--who else?"

"But a bull can't climb a tree."

"He can't, can't he? Since you know so much about it, did you ever see a bull try?"

"No! I never dreamt of such a thing."

"Well, then, what is the use of your talking that way, then? Because you never saw a thing done, is that any reason why it can't be done?"

"Well, all right--go on. What did you do?"

"The bull started up, and got along well for about ten feet, then slipped and slid back. I breathed easier. He tried it again--got up a little higher--slipped again. But he came at it once more, and this time he was careful. He got gradually higher and higher, and my spirits went down more and more. Up he came--an inch at a time--with his eyes hot, and his tongue hanging out. Higher and higher--hitched his foot over the stump of a limb, and looked up, as much as to say, 'You are my meat, friend.' Up again--higher and higher, and getting more excited the closer he got. He was within ten feet of me! I took a long breath,--and then said I, 'It is now or never.' I had the coil of the lariat all ready; I paid it out slowly, till it hung right over his head; all of a sudden I let go of the slack, and the slipnoose fell fairly round his neck! Quicker than lightning I out with the Allen and let him have it in the face. It was an awful roar, and must have scared the bull out of his senses. When the smoke cleared away, there he was, dangling in the air, twenty foot from the ground, and going out of one convulsion into another faster than you could count! I didn't stop to count, anyhow--I shinned down the tree and shot for home."

"Bemis, is all that true, just as you have stated it?"

"I wish I may rot in my tracks and die the death of a dog if it isn't."

"Well, we can't refuse to believe it, and we don't. But if there were some proofs----"

"Proofs! Did I bring back my lariat?"

"No."

"Did I bring back my horse?"

"No."

"Did you ever see the bull again?"

"No."

"Well, then, what more do you want? I never saw anybody as particular as you are about a little thing like that."

I made up my mind that if this man was not a liar he only missed it by the skin of his teeth.

"The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury

Oh, dear. Spoiled children: others, but not yours, yes?
After all, we know what happens when children are indulged in, yes?
Well, let's see if it agrees with your expectations (Cause) and results (Effect) if you have children who have their own special holographic room for fun and escape. You can be a welcome guest.

Yes, I think the parents of my generation--and the generation after ours--spoiled their children--in a lot of ways, especially about respect for their elders, their attitude toward authority, and in regard to academic values. Certainly in this story, Mr. and Mrs. Hadley have spoiled their two children--and that's not good parenting technique.  I have my reasons for my displeasure, among which are my years in teaching--and a little reminder from a friend, Mr. Ray Bradbury, whom we met earlier on a dinosaur hunt. This time, Mr. Bradbury has a different prey in mind: parents--and they're being stalked in the holographic children's nursery room that has been programmed to...The Veldt.

So, for your literary response: is there a connection to not raising children with responsibilities for their actions? How does this reflect in your life? Children as young as 3 aren't the only ones--so are many young adults. Is there really a reason to insist on not treating everyone so special so that they get whatever they want? Just take a walk in the Veldt and think about your answer. And yes: there is every reason to know this story concept is real--but it's just told in a different way. Matricide and patricide is not unknown in our culture here in the U.S.

"The Veldt"

     "George, I wish you'd look at the nursery."

     "What's wrong with it?"

     "I don't know."

     "Well, then."

     "I just want you to look at it, is all, or call a psychologist in to look at it."

     "What would a psychologist want with a nursery?"

     "You know very well what he'd want." His wife paused in the middle of the kitchen and watched the stove busy humming to itself, making supper for four.

     "It's just that the nursery is different now than it was."

     "All right, let's have a look."
 

     They walked down the hall of their soundproofed Happylife Home, which had cost them thirty thousand  dollars  installed, this house which clothed and fed and rocked them to sleep and played and sang  and was good to  them. Their approach sensitized a switch somewhere and the nursery light flicked on when they came within ten feet of it. Similarly, behind them, in the halls, lights went on and off as they left them behind, with a soft automaticity.
 

     "Well," said George Hadley.

     They stood on the thatched floor of the nursery. It was forty feet across by forty feet long and thirty feet high; it had cost half again as much as the rest of the house. "But nothing's too good for our children," George had said.
 

     The nursery was silent. It was empty as a jungle glade at hot high noon. The walls were blank and two dimensional.  Now, as George and Lydia Hadley stood in the center of the room, the walls began to purr and recede into crystalline  distance, it  seemed, and presently  an African veldt appeared, in three  dimensions, on all sides, in color reproduced to the final pebble and bit of straw. The ceiling above them became a deep sky with a hot yellow sun.

     George Hadley felt the perspiration start on his brow.

     "Let's get out of this sun," he said. "This is a little too real. But I don't see anything wrong."

     "Wait a moment, you'll see," said his wife.
 

     Now the hidden odorophonics were beginning to blow a wind of odor at

the two people in the  middle of the baked veldtland. The hot straw smell of lion grass, the cool green smell of the hidden  water  hole, the great rusty smell of animals, the smell of dust like a red paprika in the hot air. And now the sounds: the thump of distant antelope feet on grassy sod, the papery rustling of vultures. A shadow passed through the sky. The shadow flickered on George Hadley's upturned, sweating face.

     "Filthy creatures," he heard his wife say.

     "The vultures."

     "You see, there are the lions, far over, that way. Now they're on their way to the water hole. They've just been eating," said Lydia. "I don't know what."

     "Some animal." George Hadley put his hand up to shield off the burning light from his squinted eyes. "A zebra or a baby giraffe, maybe."

     "Are you sure?" His wife sounded peculiarly tense.

     "No, it's a little late to be sure," he said, amused. "Nothing over there I can  see but cleaned  bone, and the vultures dropping for what's left."

     "Did you hear that scream?" she asked.

     'No."

     "About a minute ago?"

     "Sorry, no."
 

     The lions were coming.  And again George Hadley was filled with admiration for the mechanical genius who had conceived this room. A miracle of efficiency selling for an absurdly low price. Every home should have one.
 

Oh, occasionally they frightened  you with their clinical accuracy, they startled you, gave you a twinge, but most of the time what fun for everyone, not only  your own son and daughter, but for  yourself when you felt like a quick jaunt to a foreign land, a quick change of scenery. Well, here it was!
 

     And here were the lions now, fifteen feet away, so real, so feverishly and startlingly real that you could feel the prickling fur on your hand, and your  mouth was stuffed with the dusty upholstery smell of their heated pelts, and  the  yellow  of  them was in your eyes like the yellow of an exquisite French  tapestry, the yellows of  lions and summer grass, and the sound of the matted lion lungs exhaling on the silent noontide, and the smell of meat from the panting, dripping mouths.
 

     The lions stood looking at George and Lydia Hadley with terrible green-yellow eyes.
 

     "Watch out!" screamed Lydia.

     The lions came running at them.

     Lydia bolted and ran. Instinctively, George sprang after her. Outside, in the hall, with the door slammed he was laughing and she was crying, and they both stood appalled at the other's reaction.

     "George!"

     "Lydia! Oh, my dear poor sweet Lydia!"

     "They almost got us!"

     "Walls, Lydia, remember; crystal walls, that's all they are. Oh, they look real, I must admit - Africa in your parlor - but it's all dimensional, super-reactionary, supersensitive color film and mental tape film behind glass screens.  It's all odorophonics and sonics, Lydia.  Here's my handkerchief."

     "I'm afraid." She came to him and put her body against him and cried steadily. "Did you see? Did you feel? It's too real."

     "Now, Lydia..."

     "You've got to tell Wendy and Peter not to read any more on Africa."

     "Of course - of course." He patted her.

     "Promise?"

     "Sure."

     "And lock the nursery for a few days until I get my nerves settled."

     "You know how difficult Peter is about that. When I punished him a month ago by locking the nursery for even a few hours - the tantrum he threw! And Wendy too. They live for the nursery."

     "It's got to be locked, that's all there is to it."

     "All right." 

Reluctantly he locked the huge door. "You've been working too hard. You need a rest."

     "I don't know - I don't know," she said, blowing her nose, sitting down in a  chair that immediately began to rock and comfort her. "Maybe I don't have enough to do. Maybe I have time to think too much. Why don't we shut the whole house off for a few days and take a vacation?"

     "You mean you want to fry my eggs for me?"

     "Yes." She nodded.

     "And darn my socks?"

     "Yes." A frantic, watery-eyed nodding.

     "And sweep the house?"

     "Yes, yes - oh, yes!''

     "But I thought that's why we bought this house, so we wouldn't have to do anything?"

     "That's just it. I feel like I don't belong here. The house is wife and mother now, and nursemaid. Can I compete with an African veldt? Can I give a bath and scrub the children as efficiently or quickly as the automatic scrub bath can?  I cannot.  And it isn't just me. It's you. You've been awfully nervous lately."

     "I suppose I have been smoking too much."

     "You look as if you didn't know what to do with yourself in this house, either. You smoke a little more every morning and drink a little more every afternoon and need a little more sedative every night. You're beginning to feel unnecessary too."

     "Am I?" He paused and tried to feel into himself to see what was really there.

     "Oh, George!"  She looked beyond him, at the nursery door. "Those lions can't get out of there, can they?"

     He looked at the door and saw it tremble as if something had jumped against it from the other side.

     "Of course not," he said.

At dinner they ate alone, for Wendy and Peter were at a special plastic carnival across town and had televised home to say they'd be late, to go ahead eating. So George Hadley, bemused, sat watching the dining-room table produce warm dishes of food from its mechanical interior.

     "We forgot the ketchup," he said.

     "Sorry," said a small voice within the table, and ketchup appeared.
 

     As for the nursery, thought George Hadley, it won't hurt for the children to be locked out of it awhile. Too much of anything isn't good for anyone. And it was clearly indicated that the children had been spending a little too much time on Africa.  That sun. He could feel it on his neck, still, like a hot paw. And the lions. And the smell of blood. Remarkable how the nursery caught the telepathic emanations of the children's minds and created life to fill their every desire. The children thought lions, and there were lions. The children thought  zebras, and there were zebras. Sun - sun. Giraffes - giraffes. Death and death.
 

     That last. He chewed tastelessly on the meat that the table had cut for him. Death thoughts.  They were awfully young, Wendy and Peter, for death thoughts.  Or, no, you were never too young, really.  Long before you knew what death was, you were wishing it on someone else. When you were two years old you were shooting people with cap pistols.

     But this - the long, hot African veldt--the awful death in the jaws of a lion. And repeated again and again.
 

     "Where are you going?"

     He didn't answer Lydia. Preoccupied, he let the lights glow softly on ahead of him, extinguish behind him as he padded to the nursery door. He listened against it. Far away, a lion roared.

     He unlocked the door and opened it. Just before he stepped inside, he heard a faraway scream. And then another roar from the lions, which subsided quickly.
 

     He stepped into Africa. How many  times in the last year had he opened this door and found Wonderland, Alice, the Mock Turtle, or Aladdin and his Magical Lamp, or Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz, or Dr. Doolittle, or the cow jumping over a very real-appearing moon--all the delightful contraptions of a make-believe world. How often had he seen Pegasus flying in the sky ceiling, or seen fountains of red fireworks, or heard angel voices singing. But now, this yellow hot Africa, this bake oven with murder in the heat. Perhaps Lydia was right. Perhaps they needed a little vacation from the fantasy which was growing a bit too  real for ten-year-old children.  It was all right to exercise one's mind with gymnastic fantasies, but when the lively child mind settled on one pattern...  ? It seemed that, at a  distance, for the past month, he had heard lions roaring, and smelled their strong odor seeping as far away as his study door. But, being busy, he had paid it no attention.
 

     George Hadley stood on the African grassland alone. The lions looked up from their feeding, watching him. The only flaw to the illusion was the open door through which he could see his wife, far down the dark hall, like a framed picture, eating her dinner abstractedly.

     "Go away," he said to the lions.

     They did not go.
 

     He knew the principle of the room exactly.  You sent out your thoughts. Whatever you thought would appear.  "Let's have Aladdin and his lamp," he snapped. The veldtland remained; the lions remained.

     "Come on, room! I demand Aladdin!" he said.

     Nothing happened. The lions mumbled in their baked pelts.

     "Aladdin!"

     He went back to dinner. "The fool room's out of order," he said. "It won't respond."

     "Or--"

     "Or what?"

     "Or it can't respond," said Lydia, "because the children have thought about Africa and lions and killing so many days that the room's in a rut."

     "Could be."

     "Or Peter's set it to remain that way."

     "Set it?"

     "He may have got into the machinery and fixed something."

     "Peter doesn't know machinery."

     "He's a wise one for ten. That I.Q. of his -"

     "Nevertheless -"

     "Hello, Mom. Hello, Dad."
 

     The Hadleys turned. Wendy and Peter were coming in the front door, cheeks like  peppermint candy, eyes like bright blue agate marbles, a smell of ozone on their jumpers from their trip in the helicopter.

     "You're just in time for supper," said both parents.

     "We're full of strawberry ice cream and hot dogs," said the children, holding hands. "But we'll sit and watch."

     "Yes, come tell us about the nursery," said George Hadley.

     The  brother  and  sister  blinked  at  him  and then  at  each  other.

"Nursery?"

     "All about Africa and everything," said the father with false joviality.

     "I don't understand," said Peter.

     "Your mother and I were just traveling through Africa with rod and reel; Tom Swift and his Electric Lion," said George Hadley.

     "There's no Africa in the nursery," said Peter simply.

     "Oh, come now, Peter. We know better."

     "I don't remember any Africa," said Peter to Wendy. "Do you?"

     "No."

     "Run see and come tell."

     She obeyed.

     "Wendy, come back here!" said George Hadley, but she was gone.

  The house lights followed her like a flock of fireflies.  Too late, he realized he had forgotten to lock the nursery door after his last inspection.

     "Wendy'll look and come tell us," said Peter.

     "She doesn't have to tell me. I've seen it."

     "I'm sure you're mistaken, Father."

     "I'm not, Peter. Come along now."

     But Wendy was back. "It's not Africa," she said breathlessly.

     "We'll see about this," said George Hadley, and they all walked down the hall together and opened the nursery door.

     There was a green, lovely forest, a lovely river, a purple mountain, high voices singing, and Rima, lovely and mysterious, lurking in the trees with colorful flights of butterflies, like animated bouquets, lingering in her  long  hair. The African veldtland was gone. The lions were gone. Only Rima was here now, singing a song so beautiful that it brought tears to your eyes.

     
     George Hadley looked in at the changed scene. "Go to bed," he said to the children.

     They opened their mouths.

     "You heard me," he said.

     They went off to the air closet, where a wind sucked them like brown leaves up the flue to their slumber rooms.

     George Hadley walked through the singing glade and picked up something that lay in  the comer near where the lions had been. He walked slowly back to his wife.

     "What is that?" she asked.

     "An old wallet of mine," he said.

     He showed it to her. The smell of hot grass was on it and the smell of a lion. There were drops of saliva on it, it had been chewed, and there were blood smears on both sides.

     He closed the nursery door and locked it, tight.

     In the middle of the night he was still awake and he knew his wife was awake. "Do you think Wendy changed it?" she said at last, in the dark room.

     "Of course."

     "Made it from a veldt into a forest and put Rima there instead of lions?"

     "Yes."

     "Why?"

     "I don't know. But it's staying locked until I find out."

     "How did your wallet get there?"

     "I don't know anything," he said, "except that I'm beginning to be sorry we bought that room for the children. If children are neurotic at all, a room like that -"

     "It's supposed to help them work  off  their neuroses in a healthful way."

     "I'm starting to wonder." He stared at the ceiling.

     "We've given the children everything they ever wanted. Is this our reward--secrecy, disobedience?"

     "Who was it said, 'Children are carpets, they should be stepped on occasionally'? We've never lifted a hand. They're insufferable - let's admit it. They come and go when they like; they treat us as if we were offspring.

They're spoiled and we're spoiled."

     "They've been acting funny ever since you forbade them to take the rocket to New York a few months ago."

     "They're not old enough to do that alone, I explained."

     "Nevertheless, I've noticed they've been decidedly cool toward us since."

     "I think I'll have David McClean come tomorrow morning to have a look at Africa."

     "But it's not Africa now, it's Green Mansions country and Rima."

     "I have a feeling it'll be Africa again before then."
 

     A moment later they heard the screams.

     Two screams. Two people screaming from downstairs. And then a roar of lions.

     "Wendy and Peter aren't in their rooms," said his wife.

     He lay in his bed with his beating heart. "No," he said.  "They've broken into the nursery."

     "Those screams - they sound familiar."

     "Do they?"

     "Yes, awfully."

     And although their beds tried very hard, the two adults couldn't be rocked to sleep for another hour. A smell of cats was in the night air.

     "Father?" said Peter.

     "Yes."

     Peter looked at his shoes. He never looked at his father any more, nor at his mother. "You aren't going to lock up the nursery for good, are you?"

     "That all depends."

     "On what?" snapped Peter.

     "On you and your sister. If you intersperse this Africa with a little variety - oh, Sweden perhaps, or Denmark or China -"

     "I thought we were free to play as we wished."

     "You are, within reasonable bounds."

     "What's wrong with Africa, Father?"

     "Oh, so now you admit you have been conjuring up Africa, do you?"

     "I wouldn't want the nursery locked up," said Peter coldly. "Ever."

     "Matter of fact, we're thinking of turning the whole house off for about a month. Live sort of a carefree one-for-all existence."

     "That sounds dreadful! Would I have to tie my own shoes instead of letting the shoe tier do it? And brush my own teeth and comb my hair and give myself a bath?"

     "It would be fun for a change, don't you think?"

     "No, it would be horrid. I didn't like it when you took out the picture painter last month."

     "That's because I wanted you to learn to paint all by yourself, son."

     "I don't want to do anything but look and listen and smell; what else is there to do?"

     "All right, go play in Africa."

     "Will you shut off the house sometime soon?"

     "We're considering it."

     "I don't think you'd better consider it any more, Father."

     "I won't have any threats from my son!"

     "Very well." And Peter strolled off to the nursery.

     "Am I on time?" said David McClean.

     "Breakfast?" asked George Hadley.

     "Thanks, had some. What's the trouble?"

     "David, you're a psychologist."

     "I should hope so."

     "Well, then, have a look at our nursery. You saw it a year ago when you dropped by; did you notice anything peculiar about it then?"

     "Can't say  I did; the usual violences, a tendency toward a slight paranoia here or there, usual in children because they feel persecuted by parents constantly, but, oh, really nothing."

     They walked down the hall.  "I locked the nursery up," explained the father, "and the children broke back into it during the night. I let them stay so they could form the patterns for you to see."

     There was a terrible screaming from the nursery.

     "There it is," said George Hadley. "See what you make of it."
 

     They walked in on the children without rapping.

     The screams had faded. The lions were feeding.

     "Run outside a moment, children," said George Hadley. "No, don't change the mental combination. Leave the walls as they are. Get!"

     With the children gone, the two men stood studying the lions clustered at a distance, eating with great relish whatever it was they had caught.

     "I wish I knew what it was," said George  Hadley.  "Sometimes I can almost see. Do you think if I brought high-powered binoculars here and -"

    
 David McClean laughed dryly. "Hardly." He turned to study all four walls. "How long has this been going on?"

     "A little over a month."

     "It certainly doesn't feel good."

     "I want facts, not feelings."

     "My dear George, a psychologist never saw a fact in his life. He only hears about  feelings; vague things.  This doesn't feel good, I tell you. Trust my hunches and my instincts. I have a nose for something bad.  This is very bad. My advice to you is to have the whole damn room torn down and your children brought to me every day during the next year for treatment."

     "Is it that bad?"

     "I'm afraid so. One of the original uses of these nurseries was so that we could study the patterns left on the walls by the child's mind, study at our leisure, and help the child. In this case, however, the room has become a channel toward destructive thoughts, instead of a release away from them."

     "Didn't you sense this before?"

     "I sensed only that you had spoiled your children more than most. And now you're letting them down in some way. What way?"

     "I wouldn't let them go to New York."

     "What else?"

     "I've taken a few machines from the house and threatened them, a month ago, with closing up the nursery unless they did their homework. I did close it for a few days to show I meant business."

     "Ah, ha!"

     "Does that mean anything?"

     "Everything.  Where before they had a Santa Claus, now they have a Scrooge. Children prefer Santas. You've let this room and this house replace you and your wife in your children's affections. This room is their mother and father, far more important in their lives than their real parents. And now you come along  and want to shut it off. No wonder there's hatred here. You can feel it coming out of the sky. Feel that sun. George, you'll have to change your life.  Like too many others, you've built it around creature comforts. Why, you'd starve tomorrow if something went wrong in your kitchen. You wouldn't know how to tap an egg. Nevertheless, turn everything off. Start new. It'll take time. But we'll make good children out of bad in a year, wait and see."

     "But won't the shock be too much for the children, shutting the room up abruptly, for good?"

     "I don't want them going any deeper into this, that's all."
 

     The lions were finished with their red feast.

     The lions were standing on the edge of the clearing watching the two men.

     "Now I'm feeling persecuted," said McClean. "Let's get out of here. I never have cared for these damned rooms. Make me nervous."

     "The lions look real, don't they?" said George Hadley. I don't suppose there's any way -"

     "What?"

     "- that they could become real?"

     "Not that I know."

     "Some flaw in the machinery, a tampering or something?"

     "No."

     They went to the door.

     "I don't imagine the room will like being turned off," said the father.

     "Nothing ever likes to die - even a room."

     "I wonder if it hates me for wanting to switch it off?"

     "Paranoia is thick around here today," said David McClean. "You can follow it like a spoor. Hello." He bent and picked up a bloody scarf. "This yours?"

     "No." George Hadley's face was rigid. "It belongs to Lydia."

     They went to the fuse box together and threw the switch that killed the nursery.

     The two children were in hysterics. They screamed and pranced and threw things. They yelled and sobbed and swore and jumped at the furniture.

     "You can't do that to the nursery, you can't!''

     "Now, children."

     The children flung themselves onto a couch, weeping.

     "George," said Lydia Hadley, "turn on the nursery, just for a few moments. You can't be so abrupt."

     "No."

     "You can't be so cruel..."

     "Lydia, it's off, and it stays off. And the whole damn house dies as of here and now. The more I see of the mess we've put ourselves in, the more it sickens me. We've been contemplating our mechanical, electronic navels for too long. My God, how we need a breath of honest air!"

     And he marched about the house turning off the voice clocks, the stoves, the heaters, the shoe shiners, the shoe lacers, the body scrubbers and swabbers and massagers, and  every other machine be could put his hand to.
 

     The house was full of dead bodies, it seemed. It felt like a mechanical cemetery. So silent. None of the humming hidden energy of machines waiting to function at the tap of a button.

     "Don't let them do it!" wailed Peter at the ceiling, as if he was talking to the house, the nursery. "Don't let Father kill everything." He turned to his father. "Oh, I hate you!"

     "Insults won't get you anywhere."

     "I wish you were dead!"

     "We were, for a long while. Now we're going to really start living. Instead of being handled and massaged, we're going to live."

     Wendy was still crying and Peter joined her again. "Just a moment, just one moment, just another moment of nursery," they wailed.

     "Oh, George," said the wife, "it can't hurt."

     "All right - all right, if they'll just shut up. One minute, mind you, and then off forever."

     "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!" sang the children, smiling with wet faces.

     "And then we're going on a vacation. David McClean is coming back in half an hour to help us move out and get to the airport. I'm going to dress.

You turn the nursery on for a minute, Lydia, just a minute, mind you."

     And the three of them went babbling off while he let himself be vacuumed upstairs through the air flue and set about dressing himself.  A minute later Lydia appeared.
 

     "I'll be glad when we get away," she sighed.

     "Did you leave them in the nursery?"

     "I wanted to dress too. Oh, that horrid Africa. What can they see in it?"

     "Well, in five minutes we'll be on our way to Iowa.  Lord, how did we ever get in this house? What prompted us to buy a nightmare?"

     "Pride, money, foolishness."

     "I think we'd better  get downstairs before those kids get engrossed with those damned beasts again."

     Just then they heard the children calling, "Daddy, Mommy, come quick -

quick!"

     They went  downstairs in the air flue and ran down the  hall. The children were nowhere in sight. "Wendy? Peter!"

     They ran into the nursery. The veldtland was empty save for the lions waiting, looking at them. "Peter, Wendy?"

     The door slammed.

     "Wendy, Peter!"

     George Hadley and his wife whirled and ran back to the door.

     "Open the door!" cried George Hadley, trying the knob.  "Why, they've locked it from the outside! Peter!" He beat at the door. "Open up!"

     He heard Peter's voice outside, against the door.

     "Don't let them switch off the nursery and the house," he was saying.

     Mr. and Mrs. George Hadley beat at the door. "Now, don't be ridiculous, children. It's time to go. Mr. McClean'll be here in a minute and..."

     And then they heard the sounds.
 

     The lions on three sides of them, in the yellow veldt grass, padding through the dry straw, rumbling and roaring in their throats.

     The lions.

     Mr. Hadley looked at his wife and  they turned and looked back at the beasts edging slowly forward crouching, tails stiff.

     Mr. and Mrs. Hadley screamed.

     And  suddenly they  realized why those other screams had sounded familiar.

     "Well, here I am," said David McClean in the nursery doorway, "Oh, hello." He stared at the two children seated in the center of the open glade eating a little picnic lunch. Beyond them was the water hole and the yellow veldtland; above was the hot sun. He began to  perspire.  "Where are your father and mother?"

     The children looked up and smiled. "Oh, they'll be here directly."

     "Good, we must get going."  At a distance Mr. McClean saw the lions fighting and clawing and then quieting down to feed in silence under the shady trees.

     He squinted at the lions with his hand tip to his eyes.

     Now the lions were done feeding. They moved to the water hole to drink.

     A shadow flickered over Mr. McClean's hot face. Many shadows flickered.

The vultures were dropping down the blazing sky.

     "A cup of tea?" asked Wendy in the silence.