Lost Men in the Grass

by Donald Suddaby

Genres: Science Fiction; Post-Apocalyptic sci-fi; Space Opera

Synopsis

Originally published in 1940, the protagonist of Lost Men in the Grass is a chemist who invents a serum designed to prolong life, but which in fact enormously shrinks its subjects. It precedes Richard Matheson's famous novel The Incredible Shrinking Man (1956).

Release date: May 31, 2016

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 320

Sample

IT has been said by many thinkers, who are far more learned than I, that the truth requires no apology; nevertheless, though I certainly do not intend to apologize for actual facts, I look upon it as my duty to give the reader a solemn warning. Before we proceed one line further I wish to prepare him for the incredible singularity of my tale. For a long time I have purposed to write it all out, but even now, as I sit working in my study with the sway of damson boughs outside the window and cars zooming cheerfully along the highway beyond, the whole thing seems little more than a vivid dream to me. It is still strange to think that men could lie at the mercy of such insignificant creatures as grasshoppers and ants and beetles. It requires a real effort of the imagination to realize that they had to hide in flowercups and march down earth-cracks to safety. The truth seems to be that ordinary things do not happen for ever. Thousands of lives may pass rationally, then suddenly the firm sand of circumstance slips away, and men once more are men, fighting for their lives, standing alone in a bewildering universe, yet showing always that spark of courage without which we should not be men.

It was a hot afternoon in mid-June when I first made acquaintance with Raquel. We had been neighbours for some weeks, but until that day I had never set eyes on him. Truly I had things by which to remember him, for he was one of those people who manual work early, late, and indeed at all sorts of unchristian hours. On this particular afternoon, however, I could hear him pottering about in his workshed. Beyond an occasional hammering he was remarkably quiet.

As was my custom after lunch I strolled into the garden, and, seating myself in a deck-chair, prepared for a nap. The day, I repeat, was one of those glorious perfections that are only possible in June. A heavy fragrance hung over all. Birds chirruped, hens made drowsy drone, the leaves sighed. Lulled by the peacefulness of the world my head nodded pleasantly to the monotonous hum of a bee, and soon everything merged in a delightful obscurity of silence.

I was suddenly and violently aroused from my doze by a most preposterous noise. My beautiful unconsciousness fell away, and I was guilty of an overpowering desire to murder the man from whose machine this din arose. I sat up abruptly.

‘Confound the fellow!’ I swore, and almost simultaneously the noise ceased.

Silence continued for a period, and so, thinking that Raquel did not intend to use his machine again, I yielded once more to the influence of sleep. Very few minutes seemed to have passed before the hullabaloo broke out afresh. This time it began with a series of crescendoes, leading finally to a deafening crash. I jumped up, boiling with indignation. I made dismissive remarks about Raquel and his work. Still muttering, I strode towards the house.

It was then that I first saw Raquel.

He was leaning indolently against a withered apple tree, resting one hand on his hip. He was regarding me as one would a curious specimen of tadpole….

Raquel was a small frail man, with brown eyes which gleamed quite startlingly. His high protruding cheekbones, pointed chin, arched eyebrows, and outstanding crudely shaped ears, contrived to endow him with a singularly demoniacal appearance. His face was oil-smeared and sported a three days’ growth of beard; his black hair was brushed straight back. Though his intelligent face was strangely attractive, it could in no degree rival the oddness of his garments. They were an astonishing lot. He wore an oily white apron over a pair of striped trousers, and there were poorly matched patches at vital points of his anatomy. His waistcoat had once been brown, and he had somehow induced a shrunken dinner jacket to fit him. Raquel had a remarkable constitution: he was never idle for a moment, but in spite of his comfortable income lived in one vast surge of activity. He was a man of unnatural moods, and was also, I discovered later, obsessed by the desire to appear original.

For a space we looked at each other in silence, and then:

‘Hullo,’ he remarked casually. His voice was thin and high pitched. ‘Where are you going in such a hurry?’

‘Going?’ I exploded. ‘Going? I’m trying to get away from your infernal din!’

He made no answer for a moment, but nodded his head sharply. Suddenly he seemed to remember that he was expected to speak.

‘Sorry,’ he burst out. ‘You see, I forget other people. I am busy with an invention.’ He stopped musingly. ‘You wouldn’t care to come round and see?’ he jerked out.

I assented readily, for somehow my anger had vanished at sight of this queer little man. I was unaccountably interested in his peculiar mannerisms. He opened the garden gate rather automatically; then, with a sense of hospitality no doubt, he produced a cigarette from behind an expansive ear and lighted it. For a time he fumbled in a mysterious pocket, and finally, with an air of triumph, he extracted a crumpled cigar and offered it to me. I refused it with many thanks and a profuse apology.

‘All right,’ he said in a distant manner. ‘It will do for me, later.’

We walked in silence over a patchy lawn to a big wooden shed which, he explained, was his workroom. As we entered, the place was an expanse of almost impenetrable shadow: vague shapes loomed dim and weird before me, until he unexpectedly switched on a flood of electric light. Then the impression one received was that of unbelievable disorder. The room was dotted with batteries, drills, electric saws, metal-cutters, and in each corner was a disarray of wheels, cogs, twisted wires, and sheets of tin. It was one vast confusion of mechanical lumber coated with, and in some cases smothered by, dust, oil, and all manner of filth.

For some little time I looked around me; then I turned my gaze to the little man who was the centre of all this irregularity. He was quietly smoking his crumpled cigarette, resting one hand on his hip and generally appearing to have forgotten me altogether.

‘Well?’ I exclaimed blankly.

He jumped at the sound of my voice.

‘Well?’

‘Interesting, isn’t it?’ he remarked.

‘What is there to be interesting?’

He indicated the whole room in one comprehensive gesture, and with a sideward nod of his head drew my attention to a huddled mass of cogs and rocking levers.

‘That,’ he declared, ‘is my invention.’

‘And what is it for?’ I asked.

‘Ah,’ he said, and made a queer noise in his throat which I took to be a chuckle. ‘That I can’t say. You see, if it is to be a failure there is only myself to disappoint; but if it is a success——’ He shrugged his shoulders.

He continued to show me his toys, for I can hardly call them anything else. Everything in that room he exhibited with a sort of childish glee, and we should have remained there all day had I not suggested that it was about tea-time.

‘Oh,’ he said, casting about for some further means of detaining me. ‘Come along; I will show you my theatre.’

‘Theatre?’ I echoed.

He ignored my question and switched out the light. Without further ceremony he walked into the garden, followed somewhat aimlessly by myself. And so we entered the house. As we made our way through the hall it occurred to me that Raquel possessed a quality rarely found in true genius—conceit. It was evident that he was showing off before me, for as we walked he performed little facial contortions such as are usually associated with abstruse thought. Now and again he made that odd noise in his throat.

We mounted a flight of steps, and passed into a narrow curtained room laid out and decorated in oriental style. I made an exclamation of surprise.

‘What on earth——’

But he interrupted me.

‘Indian,’ he said, and stopped. ‘You see this is my place of amusement. When I have been working down there——’ his face took on a worried expression—‘my brain turns to pulp; I grow tired and come up here at last for relaxation. You didn’t know I was a conjuror?’

‘Conjuror?’ I stammered, for at that time I took him seriously.

‘My name is Aziz.’

‘Aziz? And you——’

‘And I have an Indian show.’

I gasped. It appeared that there were no limits to the conceited idiosyncrasies of this man.

‘Yes, it is a wonderful show,’ he added in dignified tones. ‘Behind these curtains you see——’

He pulled back a purple curtain, disclosing a sort of platform with jungle scenery. I drew nearer.

‘Where did you have it painted?’

In reply he tapped his head.

‘You paint as well?’ I asked in surprise, and he nodded indulgently.

Raquel seated himself on a luxurious divan. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘this is my theatre.’

I sat taking it all in. ‘And is this everything?’ I queried, half expecting more.

‘My Crikey, no!’ he bawled offensively. ‘In the cellar I have a cinema show.’ He dragged out an ancient timepiece, and meditated. ‘Look here, Blease, I haven’t time to show you more now. Come round might: I’m giving a show for a few friends. It will be sure to interest you. All my own tricks, all my own tricks!’

I accepted his invitation with alacrity, for I had become extremely interested in his queer personality.

The rest of that afternoon passed quietly enough, for I was too preoccupied to work. I made a caricature of him to while away the time. Shortly before seven I put on my hat, and walked round to his workroom. He was inside: I could hear him walking about, but there was no answer to my first knock, and when I knocked again he set some sort of engine going—making a most diabolical noise. I found that the door was locked, so I kicked upon it.

‘Can’t see you, can’t see you,’ proclaimed a voice. ‘I’m too busy, too busy, much too busy.’

‘But this is Blease,’ I said in explanation.

The machine stopped, the door opened. Raquel protruded his head. He was oilier than ever. I remember there was a big streak running across his forehead and down his left cheek, where he had rubbed his fist. His face was a curious mixture of oil and haste.

‘Come in quickly,’ he snapped.

I entered, and squatting myself on an upturned box I watched him scurrying to and fro like a startled rabbit. Now I think of it, he was more like a startled rabbit than anything else in the world. The more I watched, the more pronounced did this impression become. He was fumbling with a tin cube in a far corner of the room. Ever and again he would dart into a pile of odds and ends, producing unexpected things, cans, chisels, copper wire, a paint brush—all sorts of things.

And quite suddenly he began to talk, to deliver a sort of lecture on mechanics in solemn monologue. I tried to distract him, but could not. He talked like a thing insane, a kind of living gramophone. His chatter was worse than his conceit, but the most peculiar thing about it was its irrelevance. It was as though he was attempting to drill his tongue or clear a dry throat.

‘I say, Raquel, aren’t you giving a show tonight?’

My voice was drowned in the clatter made by a sheet of falling tin. I repeated the question.

‘Eh?’ he exclaimed, issuing rabbit-wise from under a bench where he had been looking for a spanner.

‘Why, man! Have you forgotten? Your show!’

‘Oh yes,’ he said, his face lighting up. ‘It had slipped my memory. The housekeeper will have shown my friends up to the theatre, though. Come along: we’d better go.’

A little later, as we were mounting the flight of steps, I heard voices in the oriental room.

‘Do I know any of your friends?’ I asked apprehensively.

‘I don’t think so. Molgar, the eminent scientist, is coming. You’ll be pleased to meet him.’

‘Good evening all,’ Raquel said as we entered the theatre, and he proceeded to introduce me. Now I detest anything so formal as introductions for I never know what to say; therefore it was with something like relief that I heard the door open behind me.

‘Hullo, Molgar,’ I remember Raquel saying; then I turned and saw Molgar standing in the doorway, hat in hand.

He was certainly the most commanding figure I have seen in my life.

RAQUEL introduced me to Molgar very hastily, and then, nodding to every one, he vanished behind the stage in order to prepare his performance. Meanwhile Molgar hung up his hat and stick and came to sit beside me on the divan.

The scientist was the owner of an expansive beard, a beard which thrust itself upon your attention long before you noticed anything else. It was a marvellously strong growth of iron grey, rippling over his chest in a luxurious cascade. He had a handsome cast of . . .