The Genocides

Almost at the horizon one could make out the figures of a man and woman, nude, hand in hand, smiling. Certainly these were Adam and Eve before the Fall, though they appeared rather more thin than they are usually represented. Also, they were rather ill-matched with respect to age: he was forty if he was a day; she was barely into her teens. They were walking south, and occasionally they would speak to each other.

The woman, for instance, might turn her head to the man and say, “You never told us who your favorite actor is.” And the man would reply, “David Niven, I always liked David Niven.” Then how beautifully they would smile!

But these figures were very, very small. The landscape dominated them entirely. It was green and level and it seemed of infinite extent. Vast though it was, Nature—or Art—had expended little imagination upon it. Even viewed closely, it presented a most monotonous aspect. In any square foot of ground, a hundred seedlings grew, each exactly like every other, none prepossessing.

Nature is prodigal. Of a hundred seedlings only one or two would survive; of a hundred species, only one or two.

Not, however, man.

* * *

Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight.

How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm?

Job 25:5-6

THE END

Copyright

COPYRIGHT 1965, by THOMAS M. DISCH

Published by arrangement with the author’s agent

BERKLEY MEDALLION EDITION, DECEMBER, 1965

BERKLEY MEDALLION BOOKS are published by Berkley Publishing Corporation 15 East 26th Street, New York, N. Y. 10010

Printed in the United States of America