"... suppose there are ... things ... that live in people places. Cities. Houses. These things could imitate -- well, other kinds of things you find in people places ...
"Maybe they're a different kind of life-form. Maybe they get their nourishment out of the elements in the air. You know what safety pins are -- these other kinds of them?... the safety pins are the pupa-forms and then they ... hatch. Into the larval-forms. Which look just like coat hangers. They feel like them, even, but they're not ..."
"All those bicycles the cops find, and they hold them waiting for owners to show up, and then we buy them at the sale because no owners show up because there aren't any, and the same with the ones the kids are always trying to sell us, and they say they just found them, and they really did because they were never made in a factory. They grow. You smash them and throw them away, they regenerate ..."
""You got to get the picture. I'm not talking about real pins or hangers. I got a name for the others-'false friens,' I call them. In high school French, we had to watch out for French words that looked like English words, but really were different. 'Faux amis,' they called them. False friends. Psuedo pins."
"By the way ... what's become of the French racer, the red one, used to be here?"
"Oscar's face twitched. Then it grew bland and innnocent and he leaned over and nudged his customer. "Oh, that one. Old Frenchy? Why, I put him out to stud!"
"And they laughed and they laughed, and after they told a few more stories they concluded the sale, and they had a few beers and they laughed some more. And then they said what a shame it was about poor Ferd, poor old Ferd, who had been found in his own closet with an unravled coat hanger coiled tightly around his neck."
Avram Davidson, Or All the Seas With Oysters
"Oscar's face twitched. Then it grew bland and innnocent and he leaned over and nudged his customer. "Oh, that one. Old Frenchy? Why, I put him out to stud!"
"And they laughed and they laughed, and after they told a few more stories they concluded the sale, and they had a few beers and they laughed some more. And then they said what a shame it was about poor Ferd, poor old Ferd, who had been found in his own closet with an unravled coat hanger coiled tightly around his neck."
Avram Davidson, Or All the Seas With Oysters
Never heard this before ... an enjoyable read...
ReplyDeleteHoliday Greetings to you and yours...
Interesting concept of living things looking like everyday inanimate objects.
ReplyDeleteSo a Mimic?
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