Astounding Magazine - Inspirational Short Stories

Author :R.J. Xavier

I would like to write in this magazine, articles that readers find interesting and useful. This magazine is about literature, the arts, science fiction and history.

The Night

Many years ago I was returning home one night when I realized that I had misplaced the key. Forcing my way in would mean the wrath of the landlord so I wondered how I could get in. The only way was to get the duplicate key from the landlord who lived five miles away, but I could not go there. For civil disturbances in the night had led to the imposition of a sudden curfew, which meant nobody could be on the road after 9:00 PM, and it was 8:58 PM. Could there be a locksmith nearby thought I, but before I could walk to the gate the watch beeped 9:00.

The night was infinitely dark and strange, it seemed that everyone had gone to bed, and switched off all the lights. The road was deserted except for a lone cow and the yellowish light of the distant lamp post in the junction showed that the cow was half asleep, but even that was not clear for cows always look like that. A blue green firefly, very rare for this part of the country flew and disappeared behind a leaf, which made me aware of the garden. Flowers that bloom at night are usually white, and most have a fragrance. Overhead there were more stars than I had ever seen, and there was a particularly bright reddish star that didn’t blink. Could it be the Planet Mars, the one they called the red planet, did someone say, or did I read somewhere that stars blink while planets don’t, or did I just imagine that now. Or could it be Venus, but did I read somewhere that Venus is called the morning star and could be seen only in the early morning. My knowledge of astronomy, like so much else was incomplete, but still I did know more than most people. And didn’t Newton himself once say something like “Knowledge is an endless beach and all I do is pick a pebble here and a sea shell there”. Or was it Michael Faraday, and was he also British. All these thoughts made me tired that I sat down in the garden and couldn’t remember anything after that except the ground felt hard on my head, an annoying cricket made an annoying noise, the smell of grass and marigold flowers and once I imagined that the cow was in the garden.

The hoot of an alarm made me jump, and for a moment I was horrified to find that I was not in bed but outside at night. I went to the gate to see what made that noise, and found that it was the siren for the midnight shift. Although all factories are closed during the curfew, some crucial industries get special permission to operate. And nearby a food boutique was open, it was the factory canteen and although an independent entity, it has permission to sell only to factory workers. I felt hungry and a cup of hot tea would be good in this cold night, but they serve only factory workers and I had to walk alone in at night during a curfew. I had to walk about one Kilometer and I would not have gone 50 feet when a stray dog baked at me in the most annoying manner, this made all the watch dogs in the neighborhood to bark together. I walked quickly, and sat in the boutique chair in the most factory like manner I could imagine.

I ordered food from a woman who served as the waitress, cashier and manager and tea maker at the same time and seemed to be the only person there. She was a woman of maybe 45, and though plainly dressed and sober looking, she looked and spoke in a confident manner, and was no doubt intelligent. Half way into my meal she asked me from where I was from, and I told her what had happened. She said there was a room which I could use and said “the night shift break is at three when the buffalos come swarming in and making a big noise but till then you could sleep in the room if you want for there is nobody else here to disturb”. I almost accepted, but then refused and lied that I thought of a way to get in, thanked her, paid the bill and started walking back. On my way back the stray dog started to bark again, which prompted the watch dogs some of whom now started to howl, and I regretted not having stayed at the boutique. Back in the garden I didn’t feel sleepy but looked up to see whether I could identify any stars. The Great Bear looks more like a Saucepan than a Bear, and Orion is not even aligned, but the Milky Way could be seen clearly, a spectacular whitish path of countless stars just one of which is the Sun. Up ahead what looked like a dim star moved steadily. It moved too slowly for it to be shooting star, which is fast but fleeting. For a moment I thought it could be an aero-plane flying high up and listened but there was no sound, and I felt certain that it was a communications satellite for even the smallest satellite could be seen from earth when the sun reflects upon it.

I sometimes carry with me a bag which is filled with painting material, so I decided to paint the landscape at night. Very few people paint at night for the colours are dull and it is difficult to tell them apart, but since I was not sleepy I could do nothing else. They are more or less black and white paintings but they still look quite good. Eventually I was so exhausted that I fell asleep. The next day I found the key, it had fallen near the gate so there was no incident with the landlord who would have been really annoyed if he found out that I had lost the key. It was a troublesome night without proper sleep, still I did learn a lot that day.

Marooned

Marooned in a Lonely Island

Seeking a Friendly Ship,

Waters of Silver Ripples,

And Beaches of Branchless Trees.

A Sun that Burns the Skin

Clouds that Embrace,

Parrots that Speak Bloody French,

God ! Am I going Insane.

Is that a Damn ship out there

Will it hit the Damn Reef

Will my Dum Dog greet me

Dammit, it’s the bloody Spanish

Behind this Coconut Jungle

And Creepers of Blue Lilies

And Past that thorny hell bush

Is a Jungle of Great Trees

Trees of Giant Timber

A Jungle of Tamarinds

With a Saw from the Damn Wreck

Could I Build a Two Masts Brig

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), wrote three famous stories and a book of children’s poetry that is now considered by many to be a classic. They are Treasure Island (1883), The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), Kidnapped (1886), and A Childs Garden of verses (1885). Treasure Island is perhaps the most popular adventure story ever written, it is also the most dramatized story in any language, the most translated, and the probably the most liked sea story for both adults and children. Jim Hawkins the teenager tells the story of a treasure hunt. Long John Silver, the one legged sea pirate with a hook for a hand, and an annoying parrot is very intelligent, tactful, opportunistic, and sensible and is not always bad, especially when it suits him is probably one of the most popular characters in fiction, perhaps as popular as Oliver Twist, David Copperfield or Tom sawyer.

Billy Bones the paranoid (with reason) ruthless, secretive first mate of the pirate ship who knows where the treasure is, but has a kind side in that he is never bad to Jim Hawkins. Strangely he carries in his chest everywhere he goes a sea shell, perhaps showing that even the worst of men have a kindlier side. The wealthy squire is lazy, not very intelligent and pushy at the same time. Dr (and magistrate) is intelligent, fair and fearless but so serious that he could spoil your party if you bother to invite him. Then there is Ben Gunn who is marooned in the island for so long that he looks and moves like an animal. Israel Hands is the cunning, ruthless, treacherous coxswain of the ship who is one of the few characters who are all bad.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide is a story about the duality of human nature, being both good and bad. There are passages in this book that are so well written and so down cast and morbid that when you read it in bed on a bright sunny afternoon, you look out of the window to see whether it is raining outside.

The Childs Book of Verses has many wonderful poems and has always been in print. But perhaps the most moving poem is his epitaph in Samoa, where he is buried in a Hill.

Under the wide and Starry Sky

Dig the Grave and let me lie,

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a Will

This be the verse you grave for me:

Here he lies where he longed to be

Home is the Sailor home from the Sea,

And the Hunter home from the Hill

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland to a famous family of Light House Engineers. His middle name was originally Lewis but Robert changed the spelling while keeping the pronunciation. His father wanted him to follow his profession but constant ill health forced him to an indoor job, so as a compromise he studied law at the University of Edinburgh.

He was called to the Scottish Bar in 1875 but much to his father’s dismay made little effort as a lawyer and decided to make his mark in the world of literature. He traveled widely all his life in search of a warmer climate that suited him, and in France he met Mrs. Fanny Osbourne (1840-1914), who was ten years his senior, and was separated from her husband, and had three children. Stevenson followed her to California in by an emigrant ship called Devonian, traveling second class for the sense of adventure, but also to save money. He traveled overland from New York to California by train, but fell very ill and was nursed to health by some ranchers there. He wrote about this experience in Amateur Emigrant.

By December 1879 Stevenson recovered enough to continue his journey to San Francisco, where he was desperately poor and struggled “all alone on forty five cents a day, and sometimes less, with quantities of hard work and many heavy thoughts.” He fell ill again but in 1880 he married Fanny after the divorce was finalized. Stevenson’s early published works An Inland Voyage, (1878), and Travels with a Donkey in the Cervennes (1879), were based on his own adventures. This was followed by a constant stream of essays and articles, but success eluded him until Treasure Island was published in 1883. Stevenson was vivacious, and had a strong voice and gestures, but he was abnormally thin, and was in constant ill health. In the late 1880’s he left California for a holiday with his family in the Polynesian islands of the Pacific, fell in love with the islands and never left.

His first widely popular book, Kidnapped (1886), is the story of young David Balfour who goes in search of his fortune, and is tricked by his uncle to board the ship Covenant, to be sold into slavery in the West Indies. He eventually escapes with the help of a man named Alan Breck, and gets mixed up in a desperate adventure. This story is written in Stevenson inimitable writing style. G.K. Chesterton once said of Stevenson as a man able “to pick the right word at the point of his pen” and in this story we see what he meant. But apart from the beginning and the very end the story does not have a “plot”, but is more of a wanderer’s story. More than half it is more or less going from one place to another, in the Scottish heather trying to avoid the Red Coats.

In one chapter the Covenant hits a reef and sinks and David finds himself alone in an island, with nothing to eat and constant rain. Eating clams and leaves and berries some of which makes him ill, he hopelessly wanders around the island. Far away in the mainland houses can be seen with smoke blowing from chimneys, but he can’t find a way to get to it. One day he sees some fishing boats and desperately calls for help, but rather than coming to rescue him they point to something in the sea. Angrily, he inspects it closely and finds that a path connects the island to the mainland and he runs along it and soon reaches the mainland. Then he realises that he had been in a tidal island all the time, for when the tide comes in the path disappears under the water, only to reappear when it goes out. The story ends with David getting half of the estate from his uncle with Alan’s help, and the two friends go their separate ways.