Otherness Read Online Free PDF

"Detritus Affected," is about exploring vintages from ages past, and was inspired by news accounts concerning a new breed of archaeologist.

    This collection also features several of my published essays, gathered and reworked to express a theme that has fascinated me for some time—that of "otherness." The first one appeared as a guest editorial in Analog magazine some years back, and was reprinted in Whole Earth Review . To be taken in a spirit of humor, it deals with a quirky way to look at this bizarre culture we live in. A culture too strange to have ever been thought up in a science-fiction story.

Dr. Pak's Preschool

    Hands, those strong hands holding her down upon the tabletop . . . in her pain and confusion they reminded her of those tentacled sea creatures of fabled days which ola-chan had described when she was little, whose habit it was to drag unfortunate mariners down to a watery doom .

    Those hands, clasping, restraining—she cried out for mercy, knowing all the while that those hands would ignore her protests, along with any pretense at modesty .

    Needles pricked her skin, hot localized distractions from her futile struggle. Soon the drugs took effect. A soporific coolness spread along her limbs, and she lost the will to resist any longer. The hands loosened their grip and turned to perform yet other violations .

    Stormy images battered her wavering sense of self. Moiré patterns and Möbius chains—somehow she knew these things and their names without ever having learned them. And there was something else—something that hurt even to contemplate—a container with two openings, and none at all . . . a bottle whose interior was on the outside . . . .

    It was a problem to be solved. A desperate quandary. A life-or-death puzzle in higher-level geometry .

    The words and images whirled, hands groped about her, but at that moment all she could do was moan .

    "Wakarimasen!" she cried aloud . "Wakarimasen!"

1.

    Reiko should have been more suspicious the night her husband came home earlier than usual and announced that she would accompany him on his next business trip to Seoul. That evening, however, when Tetsuo showed her the white paper folder containing two red-and-green airline boarding passes, Reiko could think only in the heady language of joy.

    He remembers .

    Her elation did not show, of course. She bowed to her husband and spoke words of submissive acceptance, maintaining decorous reticence. Tetsuo, in his turn, was admirably restrained. He grunted and turned his attention back to his supper, as if the matter had really been of little consequence after all.

    Nevertheless, Reiko was certain his gruffness overlay a well of true feeling.

    Why else, she thought, would he do such an unheard-of thing? And so near the anniversary of their marriage? That second ticket in the envelope surely meant there was still a bit of the rebel under Tetsuo's now so-conventional exterior—still a remnant of the free spirit she had given her heart to, years ago.

    He remembers , she thought jubilantly.

    And it was not yet nine in the evening. For Tetsuo to return so early for supper at home, instead of having it with business colleagues at some city bar, was exceptional in itself. Reiko bowed again and suggested awakening their daughter. Yukiko so seldom got to spend time with her father.

    " Iye ," Tetsuo said curtly, vetoing the idea. "Let the child sleep. I wish to retire early tonight, anyway."

    Reiko's heart seemed to flutter within her rib cage at his implication. After clearing away dinner she made the required preparations, just in case.

    And indeed, later that night he joined with her in their bed—for the first time in months without beer or tobacco or the scent of other women commingling in his breath. Tetsuo made love to her with an intensity she recalled, but which, of late, she had begun to think she had imagined all along.

    Almost exactly six years ago they had been newlyweds, trapped joyously in