I first heard about Robert Sheckley's strange story "Is That What People Do?" (1978) on an episode of novelist Scott Bradfield's YouTube show. I've found Scott to be an excellent guide to good writing, so I looked up the story in Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley. It does not disappoint.
How many stories are there about uncanny binoculars? "A View From the Hill" by M. R. James is the only one I know of, a macabre masterpiece.
Sheckley's story gives us Eddie Quintero, who buys a pair of square binoculars in an Army Surplus store. Eddie's ambition is to zero-in on young women in the apartment building across the street. But the binoculars seem to have something loose inside, and only work intermittently. But when they do!
He paused to admire this unusual view, and then turned the knob again very gently. The wall loomed huge in front of him, and then suddenly he had gone completely through it and was standing inside an apartment.
The binoculars reveal normally hidden and increasingly unsettling behavior of strangers.
He saw what he had to do. He took off his shoes, straddled the binoculars again and performed a headstand. He had to do this several times before his head was positioned correctly in front of the eyepieces. He propped his feet against the wall and managed to get into a stable position.
He was looking into a large office somewhere in the interior of the Chauvin Arms. It was a modern, expensively furnished office, windowless, indirectly lighted.
There was only one man in the room—a large, well-dressed man in his fifties, seated behind a blond wood desk. He sat quite still, evidently lost in thought.
Quintero could make out every detail of the office, even the little mahogany plaque on the desk that read, "Office of the Director. The Buck Stops Here."
The Director got up and walked to a wall safe concealed behind a painting. He unlocked it, reached in, and took out a metal container somewhat larger than a shoebox. He carried this to his desk, took a key out of his pocket, and unlocked it.
He opened the box and removed an object wrapped in a silky red cloth. He removed the cloth and set the object on his desk. Quintero saw that it was a statue of a monkey, carved in what looked like a dark volcanic rock.
It was a strange-looking monkey, however, because it had four arms and six legs.
Then the Director unlocked a drawer in his desk, took out a long stick, placed it in the monkey's lap, and lit it with a cigarette lighter.
Oily black coils of smoke arose, and the Director began to dance around the monkey. His mouth was moving, and Quintero guessed that he was singing or chanting.
He kept this up for about five minutes, and then the smoke began to coalesce and take on form. Soon it had shaped itself into a replica of the monkey, but magnified to the size of a man, an evil-looking thing made of smoke and enchantment.
The smoke-demon (as Quintero named it) held a package in one of his four hands. He handed this to the Director, who took it, bowed deeply, and hurried over to his desk. He ripped open the package, and a pile of papers spilled over his desk. Quintero could see bundles of currency, and piles of engraved papers that looked like stock certificates.
The Director tore himself away from the papers, bowed low once again to the smoke-demon, and spoke to it. The mouth of the smoky figure moved, and the Director answered him. They seemed to be having an argument.
Then the Director shrugged, bowed again, went to his intercom, and pressed a button.
An attractive young woman came into the room with a steno pad and pencil. She saw the smoke-demon, and her mouth widened into a scream. She ran to the door but was unable to open it.
She turned and saw the smoke-demon flowing to her, engulfing her.
During all this the Director was counting his piles of currency, oblivious to what was going on. But he had to look up when a brilliant light poured from the head of the smoke-demon, and the four hairy arms pulled the feebly struggling woman close to his body . . . At that moment Quintero's neck muscles could support him no longer. He fell and jostled the binoculars as he came down.
He could hear the loose part rattle around; and then it gave a hard click, as though it had settled into its final position.
Quintero picked himself up and massaged his neck with both hands. Had he been subject to a hallucination? Or had he seen something secret and magical that perhaps a few people knew about and used to maintain their financial positions—one more of the concealed and incredible things that people do?
He didn't know the answer, but he knew that he had to witness at least one more of those visions. He stood on his head again and looked through the binoculars.
Scott Bradield notes that "Is That What People Do?" is only eight pages long. It is a marvel of brevity and precision.
Jay
2 May 2021
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