Sometimes when in the middle of formatting a book you can’t help but stop and read passages. You are always, of course, on the lookout for errors. They are there aplenty, believe me. Okay, maybe not as bad as I just made that sound. But you’ll have the occasional one or two. And you’ve been through the stories so many times that there really shouldn’t be anything in any of them that completely surprises you.
So why was I surprised? I can’t say. Perhaps it was my mood at the time. A reader might read a story at one time and not be that impressed, or even that affected by a story or a scene from the story. Another time they might pick up the story and read it and be blown away. Depends on the mood. The reader does bring something to the story. Always.
In any case, the book I was formatting was Blue Girl and the Stars, and the passage that caught my eye was in the story “The Last Child.” If you haven’t read the story then you won’t totally understand the scene I describe here, but it’s the scene where Sue has just walked into the side room at the factory and seen the man sitting in the chair. The man is the robot girl’s “father.” Bridget (the robot girl) walks into the room at that point and goes over to the bench for a tool or something. Bridget then notices the snowy television screen that her father is watching and she walks over and pushes in the tape (yes, it’s a video tape). Immediately The Honeymooners starts playing. Now Sue is standing there in shock as she watches the girl. Sue was already in a state of shock at the sight of the man sitting there. And I can’t really describe the man any more than that without giving things away.
It was right then, at a point in that scene, that I got a chill. I remember thinking, My God this girl is creepy! I mean, it was a serious chill I had run up my spine. And again, it might have just been my mood, or my state of mind at the time. I had been staring at the screen and manipulating text for a while at that point and perhaps I had been lulled into a sort of casual trance state. All I know for sure is that the chill was there.
And then there followed another thought: Is this what I was going for in “And You Shall Not Live!?”
In that story I had a little girl who was a ghost who appears at the bedside of wounded American Civil War soldiers and makes the pronouncement of whether that particular soldier, the one who is in the bed she is standing before, will live or die. Now, all of the soldiers are healing from wounds. Or not! The little ghost girl’s name is Emily. She takes great pleasure in telling the soldier: “Only Emily decides.” There is a dramatic pause here, and then “My name is Emily.” At which point her arm juts out and she points at the soldier, continuing with: “And you shall not live!” Of course, the soldiers are terrified of her. Some believe she is not real, of course . . . often at their peril. And there is one man who believes he can escape.
Ok, so Emily was a ghost, perhaps a bit scary, at least as far as the soldiers are concerned, but was she really creepy?
No, not like this. Not like Bridget the robot girl. Bridget is extremely creepy.
There have been studies of human looking robots in real life, and they do tend to creep people out if they look too human. It is probably that there is always something off, or not quite right about them. Obviously, we’re not there yet with the technology. The fact that they are quirky, or not quite right in manner (nowhere near, really) but look somewhat human, really unnerves us.
The little boy robot in the story “The Last Child” is creepy enough. And the mailman robot, with his Howdy Doody, ever-ready smile, is super creepy. He is somewhere between Howdy Doody and a ventriloquist doll my sister got for Christmas one year when we were kids. I can’t exactly remember the doll’s name, perhaps McCarthy or something similar. It was a ventriloquist doll that was popular in the late sixties. That doll was fairly creepy. He had a little suit, and a bow tie (if I remember correctly). He had dark hair and the big eyes. And, of course he had the cracks at the sides of his mouth. Man, I’m kind of getting weirded out now just thinking about him. So, yeah, the mailman in the story is like that. somewhat unnerving. And yet he is harmless.
But Bridget? She’s on a whole different level, and dangerous to boot.
Sue felt it. She had sort of sensed it early on; but in that scene she was totally unnerved.
And me? I wrote the damn story. You would think there wouldn’t be any effect at all when I read it. But like I said, it got to me. I felt that chill, my flesh crawled and I was totally creeped out. And again, maybe I was just sort of in a trance state from staring at the screen and moving text around for a stretch of time before that. But I felt it.
I can only hope that you—those of you who end up reading the story—feel the chill too.
Does it make me a mean person for wishing such a thing?
It will probably depend on the mood you are in when you read the story whether you feel anything. And I’ve also forewarned you, so that might lessen the effect of the scene. Hope not. I want you to enjoy it. There is, after all, nothing quite like the thrill of an ice-cold chill running up the spine.
I write because I enjoy such things. I share because I want you to enjoy the experience too. And if I’ve done my job, you’ll see and feel the same things, you’ll experience the experience.
How can that not be a fun time?