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There are two very amusing short stories that I feel impelled to re-read from time to time. One is Plus X by Eric Frank Russell, the other is Bad Medicine by Robert Sheckley.
Plus X was written by an Englishman, Bad Medicine by an American. Both stories were first published in 1956, in the classic pulp science fiction magazines Astounding Science Fiction and Galaxy respectively.
Plus X is about a human prisoner of war on an alien planet; Bad Medicine is about a homicidal maniac in New York. Both men use psychological methods to escape their condition.
I don’t want to be a spoiler, so will say only a little more about the stories.
Plus X by Eric Frank Russell
John Leeming is the hero of this story. He is a prisoner of war, captured by a reptilian race. He escapes by fooling the enemy, persuading the reptilians that earthmen and their alien allies have invisible, and dangerous, companions.
For me, one of the best scenes is when one of the enemy aliens interrogates another earthman prisoner - who knows nothing about Leeming’s lies - about these companions to get some independent confirmation. This man has no idea what his captor is talking about, but manages to give very good answers that confirm the story.
He says, “Where did you get this information?”, and when asked whether the invisible companions might manage to take over some of the reptilians, says with great menace, “I wouldn’t be surprised.”
It is all very amusing and very clever.
I had a light-bulb moment a while back; it enabled me to look at some very painful experiences in a new light.
Robert Sheckley describes such moments of illumination far better than I ever could:
“A thought had crossed his mind, a thought so tremendously involved, so meaningful, so far-reaching in its implications that he was stirred to his depths. Caswell tried desperately to shake off the knowledge it brought. But the thought, permanently etched upon his memory, would not depart.”
From Bad Medicine, a very amusing short story about someone who, when prevented from taking revenge in one way for his – completely imaginary – injuries, finds another way to destroy his enemy.
The revolutionary idea that slipped into my mind was that the injury was not all one way; it was symmetric. Although some people, perhaps operating under the control of unseen influences, had devastated me by leading me to believe I was going to get something I really wanted then taking it away at the last moment, I had in a sense done exactly the same thing to them – or to whatever was working through them.
A particular type of injury
Some people have been treated very badly; they have received such a shattering blow that they feel they have been smashed to pieces, impaled on the cutting edge of reality, attacked by a hit and run driver and left to die. This devastating, shattering blow has been described as a kick from the devil’s hoof, which is exactly what it feels like.
Many experiences can cause such feelings. I am thinking of a particular type of injury, one where something that someone wants more than anything else is offered to them, appears to be within their grasp then suddenly vanishes, leaving them devastated and wondering what hit them.
