Page 26 - Extraterrestrials, Foreign and Domestic

The Hermits

a surgical scar. He made a mental note to water the lawn more
often and went back inside his house through the front door. The
windows were shuttered and draped on both floors—just as they
had been before Ricky. The postman, the only regular caller, had
never noticed an increase in the number of occupants at 2756 E.
134th St. True, the quantity of mail, particularly mail-order
circulars and sporting journals, had been on the rise lately; but all
of it was addressed to Mr. Albert Osmoser, an elderly widower
who limped around the lower story of his house and pottered
ineffectively in the yard.
As the old man passed the staircase on his way to the kitchen, a
soft voice called out. “Al, I’m sorry about the pipes. My
metabolism, you know.”
Al made a face. “Well, you shouldn’t be surprised, on a diet of
seltzer and lavatory cakes.”
“Oh, by the way, I do prefer the salt-free seltzer whenever you
can find it at the market.”
“Now, I tried to tell you, Ricky: it’s a small store, so they don’t
always carry the salt-free. We could afford to have it delivered
from that fancy supermarket in the mall.”
Ricky’s voice was stern. “Definitely out of the question, Al. The
neighbors would wonder. But thanks for suggesting it.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Al: is the plumbing back in working order?”
“Yeah, sure, good to go.” An image of the creature lumbering
up to the ancient porcelain fixture slid across the old man’s
mind. Al hadn’t even laid eyes on the creature in weeks. Ricky
had everything he needed upstairs: bathroom, telephone, boxes of
whatever he needed for sustenance. As a tenant he was almost
ideal: rarely seen or heard, and well able to pay his room and
board.
“Say, uh, Ricky, what do you do all day up there?”
“Oh, I’m just goofing off, same as you, Al. But the sources of
my amusement are all within me. I can multi-process consciously,
unlike you human beings; that enables me to create endless
possibilities of challenge and dialogue and diversion. In fact, I was
exiled because of my unusual propensity for playing games; they

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