Well I'm totally the raft of

time keeping device all count
on you guys to haul me up short.

But hopefully I won't.

Intrude too far into it
all into the next segment.

So I just want to say thanks for
coming by and I have to I'm going to issue

an apology which is you would never
even know there was anything wrong.

If I wasn't so
honest that I revealed it and

that is that usually at any
kind of affair like this.

I always like to premier some brand new
material and I didn't do it this time

the reason was I was too busy
creating the brand new material.

This is what this is what happened I was
writing like right up to the last minute

of the day you know just
before I had like a seven A.M.

flight and so I had to be up at five A.M.
that morning and I was writing like right

up to the evening of that day desperately
trying to finish something which was long

delayed so I suppose I could have if I
thought I could have printed that off but

it was a long piece and then you would
have just got a segment ends and so

that's not always so great either.

So in any case I didn't I didn't
have my wits about me to actually

you know dig around for
something brand new and fresh.

So I'm frantically packing my bag and
stuff and I grab you know about a random

book off my shelf and sell you're
going to get some oldies but goodies.

Today it's not it's not brand new stuff
which I which I generally like to do

the piece I was working on for
anybody who has.

Any small interest in my work I actually
know that that I'll be at a convention and

people say when is this this particular
work going to appear and I'll have to beg

off and say it's not written yet I know
it's overdue and stuff but I a few years

ago I wrote and developed called A Year
in the linear city and it actually.

I got on like different award ballots
it was one of my rare pieces they

get nominated and
two of those ballots in the same category.

Guess who.
One of my contenders was Neil game.

So I knew I knew at that moment that
it was nice to be nominated but

I wasn't going to be Neil game and then of
course he did it was Coraline Coraline won

in both of the both of those ballots.

And that same year.

You know the award season was kind
of over and the pain was fading and

Christmas time rolled around and my niece
rushed up to me after unwrapping a gift or

she said look I got a copy of Coraline
of kids like take that away from the SO

IN ANY CASE year in linear city
the publisher would speak Crowther of P.S.

publishing in England and

he said let's do a sequel you know this
got on all the ballots of people who want

to see a board set in this universe and
so I said Of course I'll do a sequel and

that was like five years ago and
I just finished it.

That's what I just finished because
it's called a princess of the linear

jungle rather than a year in the linear
city so it's totally it's a bit different.

It's the same universe but.

I did that that great
self-defeating tactic where

I set the sequel two hundred
years after the original and

threw away all the same characters that
I had you know just one of those movies

where the author tries to
exercise his his himself.

You know when frustrates the readers.

Delight in seeing the same
characters come back.

So we'll see how successful it was but
in any case what I'm going to do is today.

I'll read a medium length story and
if there's any time or interest.

Afterwards there's another.

Tinier story in this collection this
collection is called neutrino drag and

I like to think of it as a.

It's not about cross-dressing
nuclear physicists you have to

know that right away.

It's I like to think of it as
a companion volume to fractal Paisley's

because what both those
volumes contain are.

Kind of my Gonzo Rudy Rucker
do type stories which is.

A very comfortable mode for
me if I was going to sit down and

somebody said you know you've got to pull
Harlan Ellison stunt and write in a store

window spontaneously I would probably
Vero off into that kind of Gonzo S.F.

mode because that just is
what comes naturally to me.

So in any case these stories
are all allegedly humorous with.

Actual fantastical lore
science fictional conceits

So what I'm going to do is I'll
read a medium length piece here.

And it's called Living with the Giants and

of course since my prescription change I
was always happy that I could read and

do distance with the same glasses but
now it to change recently as ID

terrier eight and so now I have to you all
become blue or as but I can see the text.

Living with the Giants this story was
an amazing magazine in one nine hundred

ninety and it centers on the concept
of celebrity always a vital.

Item in our cultural repertoire so

there's some celebrities mentioned I
think there's one in point of fact who's.

Has actually died since so

that it might have a slightly different
resonance than when the story appeared.

Living with the Giants.

I was sitting in a soda fountain when I
was discovered by the giant who called

herself.

Jane Mansfield.

She pulled up in her big red convertible
Corvette with white leather interior.

Each tire was the size of a normal
subcompact vehicle from my

vantage point the soda fountain the cherry
colored Hood was his biggest Texas and

the idling motor sounded
like Niagara Falls.

Jane gripped the steering wheel with
one enormous hand her huge hand

arm resting easily atop the lowered
window she wore a low cut Gypsy

blouse that revealed cleavage like
the Grand Canyon platinum earrings and

a necklace the color of her hair.

Handsome she said.

What's a nice boy like you
doing in a place like this.

Well at first I didn't
know how do we answer.

I've never spoken to one
of the giants before.

Of course they were all as familiar to
me as my own face like everyone else.

I had seen them endlessly depicted on
television and newspapers magazines and

movies and billboards and
at some distance in real life.

But the giant seldom spoke
to us little folks and

I was unaware of the protocols one might
have to employ when answering them.

And besides the media had now arrived

in their dish top to Van's hot
on the scent of their product.

The Giants that really made me nervous.

I knew that whatever I said
would be instantly broadcast

around the world printed in a hundred
outlets by evening analyzed and

scrutinized tomorrow by all those eager
mortals just like me who longed for

one of the Giants to approach them.

So I just sat there for a minute in the
soda fountain wondering what to say while

Jane smiled expectantly her perfect
teeth big a small shovel blades.

Finally I decided finally I decided

hell I thought she approach
me not the other way around.

I'd be damned if I fall all over myself in
answering her I treat her just as I would

one of my own kind.

I'm just hanging out.

I said with what I hoped was the.

Proper insouciance.

Do you do this kind of thing.

Often she shot right back to
cameras tracking like poles and

spectators between us.

I was just as shocked if you mean
talking to giants the answer is no

if you mean sitting in soda fountains
Well yes whenever I'm feeling down.

Jane's face crinkled an expression
indicative of mixed interest and

mild revulsion.

Isn't that sort of.

She had a point and I lifted one hand
up out of the frothy brown pool to

wipe the coke out of my eyes but

the following droplets from
the forty foot spray everywhere.

My face the very next instant.

Well of yes I guess it is but
it's weakens my disposition.

That's a Q. real Q..

She paused to regard me with her
enormous head cocked to one side.

So why are you depressed.

Well why are you happy.

Because I have everything I want.

Well that's a good reason I didn't
volunteer anything more I was waiting to

see what all she had to say to me.

Jay then blew a pink bubble
using what had to be four tons

of gum the rosy spear was his biggest one
of Malcolm Forbes as hot air balloons.

I mean the size of one of his old
hot air balloons not the ones

he needed to carry him around now.

It popped with a sound as loud as a cannon
as she sucked the gum back in between

silvered lips.

Which you named kid.

Mary and first or last.

Well it's my first unfortunately.

That won't do that won't
do it all change the site.

We said.

I didn't ask Won't Do For walk.

The kind of rugged
looking stand up please.

Well what the hell she had said please so
I stood up.

Caramel liquid running my soggy clothing.

Your big she said and smiled.

I realized how inept that word was when
applied to one of us little folks for

your kind that is.

She was silent again and
sizing me up speculatively.

OK Mary and
listen close I'm a staunch believer in

coincidences destiny
the stars all that stuff.

Let's take a chance I say
you can be John Wayne.

I shrugged OK I'm John Wayne.

So why.

Well why don't you get out of there.

So we can talk better.

All right.

I'm just about done anyway I wasn't

going to let her think she
could order me around.

No sense in letting this relationship
get off on the wrong footing.

Can skip a page.

One leg over the food rim of the stone
basin I stopped sure relationship.

What relationship shit was I killing
myself I knew this was my big break

as a hundred lenses zoomed in on me
as shutters clicked an electronic

flashes discharge as reporters
scribbled unspoken to their minds.

I could practically feel
myself starting to grow.

I couldn't get too close to Jane's car or

I wouldn't have been able to see
her above that cliff like chassis.

So I stood back some distance from her
vehicle dripping on the elevated terrace

around the soda fountain.

Now what I said politely but I hope not.

Obsequiously get in the car but
my clothes out ruin your upholstery help.

Look at the sprays doing your paint job
and I pointed to the Corvettes Hood with

the coke was eating pits
into the cherry lacquer.

Forget it.

She said I'll have it fixed to shut up and
climb in before I change my mind.

She left it open the passenger door and
it swung out like some alley Bob

a mountainside to my own spoken
open sesame I had to jump back so

when it knocked me flat.

Come on come on admonish Jane hop aboard.

Easier said than done I walked with
squishing noises over to the car

conscience conscious all the time of
the cameras on me when I stood beside it.

I had to reach up fifteen inches over
my head to grasp the aluminum ridge of

the door frame.

I chain myself flex my arms quite
a toe hold and then I stood and

what seemed to be an acre
of dirty auto carpet.

I had to repeat the sequence to get
into the cowhide smelling seat.

I looked up at Jane towering
beside me it was like staring at

the Colossus of Rhodes her bust was
mountainous I tried to picture her bra

could start she told me reaching across
to shut the door her arm resembled

a freckled wall the sound of the door
slamming nearly definite me and

then she peeled out the acceleration
force me back deep into the sea.

You could see that was going to
be a lot used to in my new life.

Jane's mansion occupied a part of the city
that had formerly comprised an entire

residential subdivision the whole plat
had been taken by eminent domain and

allocated to the Giants when they
had first manifested themselves.

We thought it would be enough space for
all of them to live in.

It took hundreds of men
six months to demolish

all the existing structures carted
rubble away level the ground and

lay fresh green turf over
an area as big a Central Park.

The Giants had then come in and

build precisely one enormous
structure on the land.

So other parcels around the nation
were quickly appropriated and

given to the Giants.

Whereupon they built more titanic
Titanic mansions for their kind.

No one except the few cynics
minded all that much.

We had quickly found that we couldn't
live without the Giants they added so

much luster to our drab Lloyd's we

gloried in the shadows as if
in the brightest sunlight.

They were the talismans that gave ultimate
meaning to our own humble existences

Jane opened her garage door with a remote
control as big as a refrigerator and

we drove in it was like entering
Nasa's vehicle assembly building.

Once inside the hangar Jane
said OK John follow me.

For a second.

I didn't know to whom she could be
referring and then I remembered it was

my name I was now about to become
John Wayne I hoped I was up.

The rule.

Reversing the procedure I used
to enter Jane's car I soon stood

on the concrete floor.

Jane was striding towards the door
leading into the house and

I had to run to keep up with her the oil
stains on the floor were as big as

lakes and involved why detours by the time
I reached the portal she had vanished.

Luckily she had left the door open and
I was able to get inside

the interior of Jane's mansion was Vista
is a brocade in Crystal lot lustrous

woods and shiny marble Delphic curtains
and silver fixtures it was all half

a million to me and I was surprised not
to be more an oil of it until I realized

the reason why I had seen it a hundred
times before on T.V. and movie screens

the myriad rooms filled with laughing
passionate figures of Jane and her kind.

I don't know if I've mentioned
the Jane was wearing perfume

she smelled like a whole
greenhouse full of freezy is

also I was able to follow
her scent through the House

whose topography was out totally strange
to me until I found her in the bedroom.

Jane had kicked off her high heels and
once unsnapping her Toreador pants when

I walked in panting and exhausted from
my Alpine expedition of Percy airs.

Hurry up.
John we have to have sex.

Now.

I try to catch my breath.

Is this part of the job description.

Don't be silly your new life
could hardly be called work.

You're just supposed to enjoy yourself.

Jane had her slacks down over hips and
she wasn't wearing any panties.

I was riveted by the sight of her
pubic Bush it was this thick and

extensive is what was left of
the Amazonian rain fire as I hardly see

her will be able to do anything together I
venture and it'll be awkward at first but

things will get easier as you start
to grow having sex with a giant is

in fact one of the ways you begin to grow.

This is the commencement of your new life.

John.

I lifted my shoulders sheepishly.

I had no one to blame for this but myself
if I was uncomfortable now it was only

because I had succumbed to the lure of the
giants and placed myself in the situation

I would have to do with Jane said From
now on there was no turning back.

I began to undress tossing my
wet tiny garments to the floor.

Jane's pants were down around her ankles
she bent at the waist remove them

completely.

It had been pointless to try to
visualize trains for office.

She wasn't wearing one her breasts spilled
out of her blouse exactly as those of

the original Jane had tumbled forth in
that famous picture that graced the cover

of that book about an earlier generation
of giants more nearly our own size.

Stared like a fool her breasts
were as big as whales.

Hurry up.

Jane repeated.

I hurried Jane already lay in the bed.

I stood helplessly on the rug.

Finally I spotted the bedside
lamp electric cord.

I began to climb up hand-over hand up
it slippery lad perched on the bed

table's edge I surveyed the recumbent form
of Jane which seemed to stretch for miles.

This would not be making love as I
knew it to be exploring a continent.

I jumped down landing
softly on the mattress.

Like Lewis and
Clark I began to chart unknown territory.

I range from mountains to valleys and

was almost swept out to sea when
I ventured down to the delta.

I don't know what if anything.

Jane good out of my travels but
it was certainly an experience I had never

imagined and
I was glad I could not refuse.

Half way through doing what I was
doing I stopped stricken with a new

thought change.

I think cameras watching us now of
course there are always cameras but

do they have to be on listen.

Do you want to grow.

I consider with Jane and
I my two when I got more nearly her size.

Well yes.

Then they have to be on you
don't grow except on video.

If I have been Larry before becoming
with chain proposed I was now utterly

bent on it I realized.

Knew that I would do whatever she said and

it turned out to be pretty reasonable
considering a Giants needs.

Life with Jane and her fellow Giants
wasn't bad considering I wasn't yet

their peer during most of the day.

Jane and I shopped or ate in public a made
up peculiar kind of love the shopping

was just show of course since there was
nothing in any of the tiny stores that

Jane could possibly use the ritual simply
consisted of us promenading up and

down the sidewalks or weighing in at
the unseen contents of store windows

down around Jane and Jane's ankles letting
the public feast their eyes on us.

It was hard work keeping up with Jane's
pace but mostly I managed occasionally

I got to write Jane's pet Leopard when
she took him out he was of a commensurate

size with Jane and I was frightened of
him it first until Jane explained that he

would no more deigned to eat me than
a cat would bother with a crown and

I recalled some of the cats I don't and
I was not reassured.

But eventually I got used to
sitting up on his broad furred back

just behind his rhinestone collar
beneath the arc of a leash that was

a stick as a cable on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Several times every day I checked myself
in the mirror for signs of growth and

after several weeks I imagined I could
detect an increase in my stature and

I asked Jane which she thought.

She frowned and said Yes yes you're
definitely growing but I fast enough.

There seems to be some problem.

I don't know if the public is quite ready
to believe in you is John Wayne we need to

get you some more publicity.

Are you practicing your drawl.

Well dang it.

Missy tempted I'm sure trying to
get this year we had drawn down.

Not so broad.

Please.

I'm sorry.

James from was replaced by
a look of concentration.

We're going to have to throw a gala affair
in your honor that should help you grow.

I'll get busy calling people right away.

I've already been to
many parties with Jane.

But none of them had ever
been held specifically for

me I hoped it would work a date was
a range for a week from that day and

the engraved of mutations each as
big as a billboard were sent out.

Meanwhile life continues before
an endless round of photo

opportunities charity galleries and
nightclub appearances their openings and

celebrity banquets award ceremonies and
film festivals.

At one such occasion I was approached for
the first time by a reporter

I can't even remember now what questions
were asked of me all I recall is babbling

blithely into a microphone while the
cameras closed in tightly on my face but

that contact with the media had its effect
the next time I lay my Slade myself

naked across Jane I found that by
dint of stretching to my utmost I

was now simultaneously able to reach each
nipple with the tips of my index fingers.

It was a historic moment in my life I was

convinced the true giants
status would soon be mine.

It was one funny thing about the size
of the giants though it it fluctuated

when I usually noticed this fact I was
inclined to believe I was hallucinating.

Nothing in the public knowledge about
the Giants never prepared me for

this possibility of eventually However I
was forced to accept it is the truth.

Sometimes the Giants would seem
utterly gargantuan their heads in

the clouds their feet planted as solidly
as islands in the sea these times

seem to coincide with the focus of media
attention the adoration of the public

at such times the Giants positively
seem to radiate a kind of glory

borrowed from their audience at
over times the joy it seem big but

not Cosmic in scale they were more
like occupants of the extreme end.

The permissible human spectrum
then like a Libyan immortals

this was the stature in fact that they
began most often to hold in my eyes and

sometimes they even look strictly
mortal or even less than human.

When very rarely a giant stumbled or
made a full pot.

I remember once when Jane
caught some kind of flu.

She lay groaning and moaning in bed
clutching her stomach before she

had to jump up with a case of diarrhea.

When she finally came out of the bathroom.

I could almost look level into her eyes.

But that didn't last long.

The glamour always returned and
I must confess that I

was hoping the upcoming party in
my honor would confer some on me.

My big day have arrived at last.

Jane insisted that I dress in my
Stetson and chaps boots and spirits.

She'd be wearing a clean white cocktail
dress with spaghetti straps calculated for

maximum exposure of her assets.

I could hardly contain
myself until evening.

I spent the day in front of the mirror
dressed in my John Wayne outfit

practicing my accent watching for
any sudden spurts of growth

was a long way from hanging out and
soda fountains I told myself.

Around six P.M. the haters arrived
a little people like I had once been

they were equipped with a whole
fleet of vehicles needed

to carry around the giant Can a Paisan
trays of drinks this fleet was

air lifted by choppers to the table tops
with the troops deployed themselves and

began on loading Ritz crackers as big as
manhole covers a team of engineers erected

a huge silver champagne fountain and a
convoy of taker trucks arrived to fill it.

Soon the bubbly was tumbling down
into the terrorist base and.

I supervise the operation
with an air of superiority

noting with pride how I took
towered over these former.

In of mine easily twice
as tall as any of them.

After tonight I was sure I
would utterly toward them.

The musicians arrived today.

They however word Giants.

I recognize Hendrix Len and
Morris in Joplin Holly and

ready and of course Elvis.

Lord.
This was going to be one hell of

a party I was so excited.

Jane had spared no expense for

me at the same time I was as
nervous as a Victorian bride.

I hoped I would be able to
live up to her expectations.

I helped the tiny roadies
to deploy the norm.

It's microphone's cumbersome his
battleship cannons hoping to exhaust some

of my nervous energy.

Well I succeeded in doing was getting so

sweaty that I had to go upstairs and
change my spangled shirt.

Around nine the guests began to
stroll in I had never seen such

a glittering a ray of giants practically
everyone who was anyone was there.

Warhol Onassis Princess Grace Montgomery
Clift Liz Liza Mick Gable Madonna Charles

and Diana Malcolm Forbes Donald Trump Karl
I can Mailer Updike king cobra Scorsese E.

Newman Fonda Henry and
Jane Picasso Pablo and

Polow mush novel each one of them
greeted me personally as they came in

the men shaking my little hand
with care not to crush it.

The women launching air kisses over
my head as they pressed me to their

tremendous bosoms it was all too much for
me my head began

to whirl I barely managed to utter
the requisite perfunctory pleasantries.

I felt my limbs and torso lengthening
enlarging with every embrace and

hand clasped.

When Brando walked through the door having
jetted in unexpectedly from his tropic

hideaway I almost fainted his jet which
is big is the Empire State Building and

it needed a runway
the size of Rhode Island.

After the majority of Jess arrived
I left my post by the door and

I plunged into this heavy social
vortex circulating among the Jaya.

Glitterati everything went
fine until midnight and

that was when I made my fatal mistake.

I had had too much to drink and
snort the Giants laid lines as thick

as standard gauge rails across mirrors as
big as the Rockefeller Center skating rink

their rolled up bills were the
circumference of Mighty Oaks I got into

an argument with Dennis Hopper about
just how good an actor James Dean

it been I had to stand on a chair to
maintain eye contact with copper but

I thought I was holding my own and one
James Dean himself walked up invariably

attracted by the sound of his
own name as most Giants were.

He poked me in the chest with a finger
as big and stiff as a telephone pole.

Hey you asshole pigmy you
were you to be put me down.

I tried to summon up some
John Wayne style bravado.

But I could think of no rejoinder to
say save us stammered hope who think

yeah you said Dean exhibiting no more with
them myself but unfortunately this was not

a contest of wit but of sheer size before
I could react Dean picked me up and

with a minimum of ceremony dumped me in
the champagne fountain the whole room

went dead silent all attention
focused on me but it was the rule on

kind of attention it was hostile and
from my superiors it did not make me grow.

Instead it began to have
the opposite effect.

I could feel myself shrinking
shrinking from nowhere.

Jane appeared.

Well you can take the boy
out of the soda fountain but

you can't take the fountain
out of the boy.

The Giants burst into harsh laughter
the men roar and the women tittering.

All right Mary and
Jane said Hall as in clear out.

I didn't even bother to try to protest.

I knew the broadcast of my shame that
already been seen by the whole world and

the public would never accept me as
John Wayne after such a disgrace.

I didn't even bother.

Pack any of my new clothes which of course
would be too big in just a few days.

I only pulled myself out of the champagne
and I slogged wetly over to the to our.

A few weeks later I was
back to my normal size.

I didn't mind too much.

It felt more comfortable.

Somehow I didn't return to hang around
soda fountains those days were over.

Instead I found a job I met a nice girl
my own size I got married I settle down.

I had kids I got older I never followed
the lives of the giants much after

my exile from their midst.

It was just too painful but
every once in a while I will admit I did.

D. dream about the days when
I was almost one of them.

And you know I could have
sworn at such moments.

I actually did shoot
up an introduction and

I have to I have to retroactively dedicate
that story to poor Susan Boyle for

her sheet she wandered into
the valley of the giants and.

Was summarily hurt and kicked out.

Wow We do have time.

Who's got we've got some time to be.

All right maybe we've got time.

This is a real short one.

I did want to read it because it's in
honor of we should always honor those

who are.

No longer with us.

And I think a lot of the conference
is very earnestly and

importantly done that but
this story is there

it is page one thirty one this story is
what you might term an answer story and

everybody who loves rock music or

pop music knows about Answer
songs where somebody.

You know.

Neil Young does Southern man and
then who is it Alabama who is it limits.

Did the response you know or
leave at least a partial response that so

there's always in Iraq
music there's a great

tradition of dialogue going on
between musicians and stuff and

that's one of the great things about
science fiction too and I'm not.

This is not a unique observation
mine is that science fiction

is a dialogue you know we're still
answering with still talking

back to Robert Heinlein even though he's
been dead and gone for a long time and.

So so it is a conversation and
so this story.

This is kind of an answer story.

And as I say I have each of the stories
in this volume has a little preface and

I mention to the reader here that.

While I'll just read it many many
years ago I read a great story by

the late George Alec Ephron Ger entitled
and us two I guess this right despairing

tale revealed that the ongoing extinction
of various species a phenomenon

we all were meant had nothing to
do with mankind's depredations but

it was simply a cosmic reality every
now and then a species would simply be

squeezed instantaneously out of existence
by hidden laws of the universe and so

that's the F. in your piece and
I was fascinated by the story and.

It stuck in the back of my head and I it.

I'm not quite sure if it got reprinted
when golden Griffin did their

recent F unsure volumes but
it was it lay on reprinted for

many many years and
I thought that was a shame too.

So I wrote this little story.

Responding to F. injures and us two I
guess and mine is called and them too.

I hope so.

This is kind of like as we saw Mike.

Mike writing his Gollum home
in response to MCLEISH So

it's you know it's
a useful impetus I think.

For fiction writing if you do get
stoked about a particular author

a story is to cut it kind of try to think
how you might take the their ball and

run with it with your own perspective so
it's.

Yeah I do that from time to time and
them too.

I hope I saw the first of the new
creatures and that capitalized.

I saw the first of the new creatures
on my way to work one Tuesday morning.

Of course I didn't know then
what I was looking at or

what it all meant to a portended no
more than the rest of the world did.

Having just got off the first Ave bus.

I was walking down the sidewalk towards
my office building when something in

the gutter caught my eye.

At first I thought it was a discarded
length of rubbery yellow garden hose

about six inches long or some other
bit of anonymous industrial debris but

that it moved like a headless snake it
riot and rooted among the papers and

trash apparently questing for
something good to eat.

I surmise this motivation on the part
of the lemon colored hole was because

it was making a snuffling noise that
one could easily associate with anger.

I don't I don't remember being
frightened at all just curious.

There wasn't any sense of menace
emanating from the flexible

yellow organ no horror movie
shiver swept down my spine.

I felt only the same sense of
dispassionate interest that your

typical city dweller takes
from watching pigeons or

squirrels feed it all seemed
quite surprisingly normal.

I moved to the edge of the curb and

I looked down the rubbery texture of
the hose was still dominant close up but

it was mitigated by what were plainly
poor as some of which had short

black hair is growing from them
as I bent down for a closer look.

The hose briefly curled
up what is if sensing me.

I saw a two contract thing in dilating
nostrils Sheens with moisture and

then my eyes travelled to
the other end of the hose or

snout as I was beginning to think of
it that end vanished down a storm drain

plainly the snout was attached to
something I stepped into the street now.

I tried to make out the rest of the body
hidden in the darkness of the sewer.

But the snout must have been
quite long for nothing.

Bulked immediately behind it.

Impulse I grabbed it.

I still don't know why I just did
it it was the first person ever to

touch a new creature and then cut it.

Thank goodness it was
one of the harmless one.

The slim trunk stiffened like a board.

It was warm and tough a pair of red all
eyes with black diamond shaped pupils

set amid a swatch of grey first
suddenly appeared behind the grating

of the sewer I yelped elect
go of the Snowdon retracted

this fast as if it had been on
a mechanical take up reel and

then the eyes vanished to
well of course I was stunned.

I looked around to see if anyone else had
witnessed my encounter with this strange

new addition to urban subterranean life.

But all the passers by were too busy they
were wrapped up in their own worlds.

So I continued on with the work.

Despite some deep reservations as
to how my story would be taken at

coffee break I told all my
coworkers about the incident.

They all laughed naturally and someone
mentioned that old urban myth about

crocodiles in the sewers and
we all went back to our desks.

But later on I was glad that I
had mentioned it because when

all the various really sightings of the
new creatures world wide were correlated.

It turned out that my encounter
had been the first one.

And I knew it was sheer luck that I hadn't
done anything in the sheer luck and

that I hadn't done anything special.

Except to keep my eyes open and
not dismiss what I saw.

Still being the first to make
me feel kind of special as did

all the attention from the media.

But of course my personal story pales next
to that of the new creatures themselves.

It was just a sidebar to the biggest
event of historical times but

it was my personal brush with
greatness the only unique thing

that ever really happened
to me in my whole life.

Anyway.

That evening I went home as always I
ate supper I watched the early news.

But there was nothing on it about
the yellow snow as I named it in my head.

But the next morning that was practically
all of the media could talk about

the city was inundated with yellow snouts

they seem to like the damp darkness of the
underground tunnels lacing the metropolis.

But many had been seen
scuttling across streets and

parks apparently from one layer to
another they were indeed grey for it.

About as big as a wild hog but
more sim us with short fly whisk

tails their snouts were a good
eighteen inches long and kept horrible

horrible close to their heads when not
use almost like a butterfly's proposes

the yellow snouts appeared to be
omnivorous scavengers as it as they had

been observed consuming an immense variety
of vegetables ranging from carrion and

hot dogs to lettuce peanuts
French fries and pretzels.

People were being advised that morning
by the media not to approach the yellow

snout although the animals had
exhibited no hostility yet.

And in fact seemed skittish around people.

It was not certain though that they
whether they possessed teeth or

claws of animal barbs
specimens both living and

dead had been secured by the animal
control of Dorothy's and

local national and global experts
were examining them already.

When I went to work that
day I was something

of a celebrity people who were to
prove my encounter yesterday and

soon that was everyone in
the building tended to read.

Art Museum expert on the yellow snout.

And they asked me lots of questions about
the mainly where they could possibly have

come from that was the main
question of course.

Pope public opinion was about evenly split
between two theories the yellow snouts

had been dropped by a U.F.O. or they
had been manufactured in a secret lab.

But if things turned out both of those
theories were wrong and much to tame.

Of course I had no insights that
anyone else didn't possess and

I was reduced to listening to
the radio for further information.

Around noon news of the yellow snouts
was eclipsed or supplemented by a new

event in Ohio another new
creature had surfaced that

was what the announcer call it called it
and we all instantly knew that this term

was going to be the collective name for
the yellow snouts in this other visitor.

The Ohio new creature was something
like a giraffe except twice is true all

there was a troop of several thousand
outside to more than the average body of

one of these individuals was Shaggy
like a mammoths but striped blue and

our engine seemed specialized to browse
and some crop at the height of its head

since its unjoined did lead made it
unable to bend and reach the ground.

A lot of a local mayor had started
calling them Dali Lama is and

the name seemed to stick to this this
second sighting made the world sit up and

really take notice one new creature
however odd was an anomaly but

two were disturbing trend.

Were we.

Undergoing a planned invasion with
some mad bio engineer letting

loose the creations of his that no
one knew but everyone had an opinion

the next sighting came from Texas
a kind of flat desert burrow or

like a Manta Ray lost my line
there like a Manta Ray was sighted

by hundreds of people these new
creatures were dubbed Santa.

Fish hard upon this sighting came reports
from California of a kind of small

Centaur six limbed in the classical
manner with a wolf slower body and

a monkey like torso some reporter christen
them christened them a low boat chips.

But now it was plain that whoever
was deposited in these creatures or

whatever was making them appear was
working westward ships in the Pacific were

alerted to be on the watch for anything
peculiar breaking the surface of the sea.

Productive work at my office of course and

pretty much across the world and
more or less come to a halt

a group of us adjourned to a bar
with the television where we would.

Could wait for
the latest new creature to appear

around six all local
programming was interrupted for

a nationwide broadcast which was also
being fed by satellites around the world.

On the screen came the bearded
face of a scholarly looking man

the crawl across the bottom of
the image identified him as a fairly

famous Harvard naturalist who'd
written many books on Popular Science.

Basically as best as I can recall
with only four new creatures to work

with this expert had correctly
devised the same theory that later.

Scientists would confirm he was a very
smart guy and this is what he told us.

These new creatures were not
extraterrestrial in the common sense of

the word they were carbon based life using
the same D.N.A. as our Familia dogs and

cats spiders and snakes with all the same
kinds of proteins and amino acids and

other biological stuff their
proteins even exhibited the same

sure rally as ours whatever that was and
interbreeding was possible.

The odds against organisms
from other worlds being so

similar were astronomical and
the famous man smiled Here it is upon.

Also the.

It was not likely that
they were artificial for

they were too randomly complex no sane

person would have bothered to design such
creatures full of anatomical quirks and

dead end organs which they exhibited it
was obvious from dissection that they

were the result of evolution an
evolutionary track parallel to our own but

just as valid given the some unknown
set of environments and circumstances.

The word parallel was the key said
this naturalist new creatures were

from another Earth modern physics not
permitted such alternate dimensions

he said how they would cross from their
dimension to ours he would leave the front

the physicist to explain but he could
hazard a guess that a single crack in

space a wormhole a flaw in the Continuum
was sweeping across the Golden Globe

is the planet rotated depositing
new creatures wherever it touched.

What was happening on
the other side of the flaw

how it was managing to hoover
up whole flocks of creatures

from obviously radically distinct
environments was even less apparent.

It was possible.

He continued that this strange phenomenon
had even happened before the ancient

explosion of life forms some of them quite
bizarre recorded in the fossil record

of the Burgess Shale for
instance could be explained in this way

in any case said the Naturalists it
was now up to people up to people

whether they would allow the new preachers
to take their place in the world.

Many of them such as the Dalai Lama
is might be unfit for our world and

starve without human aid the new creatures
could possibly also bring diseases and

parasites with them and wreak ecological
having displacing native species and yet.

The deliberate slaughter of so
much of the new life.

In a world that had already seen this is
what I'm to actually tearing up at this.

Well I must be a good writer but
the the don't look.

It's slaughter of so much new life
in a world that are already seen so

much extinction and which was suffering
from twiddling biodiversity was not a step

to be taken lightly and with that
the Naturalists concluded his speech

we all went home slightly tipsy or
outrageously drunk or wandering.

Well of course we now know that
slaughtering the new creatures

proved to be impossible.

Thanks to their sheer numbers as
the cause Mogahed onic the locus for so

it was dubbed circled the globe once twice
a dozen times deposited vast herds and

swarms Pride's in packs flocks and

schools of new creatures in
widely scattered locations.

The first amateur videotape or
who caught a stampede of Nash

tusks emerging from thin air sold the tape
to C.N.N. for a cool half a million.

This parallel Earth seemed even more
feck and then our own a hole in

the ecology we can only decipher in
bits and pieces host to a thousand

exotic breeds that are that made our world
look like a primitive Galapagos Island.

Nothing short of a nuclear attack could
have eliminated say the hundreds of

thousands of snuffle up a guess is in
Montana or the millions of snitches

in Mongolia not to mention the zillions
of flutter buys in Mexico.

To say nothing of
the think fully behind but

embarrassing Polka Dot buyers that took
up residence in that securest of homes

the human body after all look
at how little success we

had had in trying to stem the migrations
of killer bees a fire ants.

There were minor successful local
massacres true authorized and

unauthorized and some natural predator
prey pairings of new creatures were

imported intact helping to stabilize
things but on the whole any human

attempt to eliminate the new creatures was
like trying to bail the ocean with this.

Who.

As the years went by
the arrival of more and

more new creatures became just a fact
of life people and societies and

institutions and
the ecology of either adjusted or failed.

The N.R.A. has disappeared.

But that's because now
everyone goes around armed.

We don't hear much from either Hawaii or
the Sierra Club these days and

Australians almost almost wish they
could have their overabundant rabbits

back in place of the weasel dillo
those that have eliminated the.

Life is certainly richer in stranger
though that's visual for a while there.

It was like inhabiting the Garden
of Eden Eden then getting to

name all the animals for the first
time once more scientists these days

seem to feel that the influx is slowing
a little They're not really sure.

So since it's hard to pick new
faces out of the crowd so to speak.

When I think back to that
day when I first grab when I

grasped the first yellow snouts snout.

It's sometimes seen
seems as if I personally

form the bridge to let the new
creatures cross into our world.

I know it's silly but

that's just how it feels sometimes I
guess the only big question remaining now

is what that was brought up by that famous
Harvard naturalist in a recent interview.

Not of the new creatures to date.

He noted had it exhibited
anything like human intelligence.

He went on to speculate
whether any such intelligence

had every volved on this parallel Earth
and whether such sapient beings were

smart enough to stay out of the path
of the cosmos gonna glocal or

might they to be caught up in it one
day the interview the interviewer asked

Mightn't they even be controlling
the whole process and the naturalist

admitted that it might be possible
although he couldn't see why they would.

It made me wonder if we might get a visit.

Someday from our smart or smarter cousins
next door and how they'll fit in.

Maybe there are even tailoring
the world to their own specifications

before they arrive.

Who knows.

I know lightning seldom strikes twice but
I'm keeping my eyes open.

Maybe I'll be the first
to spot them to hold.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

But I think I think why I got teary
there was the fact that I mentioned

in the introduction that story that I when
that story appeared effin sure was still

alive and I said Should I send it in my
that he doesn't want to hear from me and

then I kind of always miss that connection
that I had a mate who knows maybe sorry

it was kind of towards the end
of his life when he had a lot of

you know as as we famously know his
is vast series of medical problems

really dragged him down at the end.

So anyway I think I think.

That it was a missed opportunity but

maybe he maybe didn't see it I can
always imagine we're here for.

No I don't know.

No this one.

It's just it's almost like my story.

It's just this it's just this
normal Joe's six pack guy who

starts to notice that like one day
there's no more cockroaches and

he just you know and it turns out that
it's a natural law the things just come

in they only disappear though in
George's story which I thought was.

A lack that he needed that you know black
hole white hole kind of effect there where

things start spewing out of
the interest of the universe so.

Well I think we didn't overlap
the time too much and he did.

If we have a second or two for questions
more than happy to hear anything that.

Well I just want to say thanks once
again you guys were great audience.

Thank you.