LordPeter List Literary Contest

"It's dark," Harriet thought. "Very dark," she thought again, "but noisy." It was indeed very noisy in much the same way Zen gardens are not. Off to her left someone was doing something to several cats and perhaps a sheep that sounded decidedly unfriendly, while all around her was the soft mumbling most often heard in the undergraduate library stacks during mating season.

Inspiration struck with just enough force to get her attention without doing any real damage and she thought, "Maybe if I open my eyes it won't be so dark." Her brain passed the proposal through several sub-committies, approved it, and sent the order off to her eyes who promptly refused saying they frankly didn't want to know what was happening over to the left. Harriet tried opening both eyes again, and then she tried just the right one, and then the left, but they stayed stubbornly shut.

"If Madam has completed her facial aerobics, perhaps Madam would wish to place an order." Both eyes snapped open. The voice belonged to a tall, purplish orange insect who at the moment was using its upper right arm to tap a pen impatiently on a pad being held by its upper left arm. The two lower left arms were held stffly in front of it with small towels draped over them, and the lower right arms were held with their claws placed on the creature's hip in such a way as to convey the maximum amount of contempt without having more than say five per cent of the tip deducted.

"Order?"

"Yes, Madam, order. Perhaps Madam would like a drink, or perhaps," here the creature visibly shudderred, "a coffee?" This was said in a voice cold enough to keep Walt Disney comfortably on ice for a year. The wait'un was a Parisite whose home planet has the impossibly unlikely name of Paris which is famous for being the place where the dominant life form has evolved into a species so rude that they have taken over most of the deli's, expensive restaurants, and department store cosmetic counters in the more fashionable parts of the galaxy.

Harriet made her voice so non-challant it would make Perry Como seem hyperactive and ordered, "Tea." The wait'un scuttled off to the kitchen visibly shaken.

Having gotten rid of the Parisite Harriet could finally look around the room. It was a large room with what turned out to be a small orchestra off to her left instead of the abatoir she half expected to see. In the large open space in the middle of the room two Gigolorians were twirling around demonstrating the Danubian Waltz. The Danubian Waltz is a terribly seductive dance whose popularity is hampered somewhat by requiring the female partner to have three legs and an extra left arm, and the male partner to be an improbable shade of blue. On this night the female Gigolorian was wearing a gown that was a bluish pink that almost, but not quite exactly pleased the eye.

Harriet looked around the rest of the room. "The people, the things," she thought. She looked again and corrected, "The people, the other people."

Scatterred around the perimeter of the dance floor were tables like the one Harriet was sitting at with two or three beings (depending upon the species' courtship/reproductive needs) at each one. Even if you are unfamiliar with the particular anatomy involved it was obvious that the participants were involved in the kind of behavior more usually found in the darker corners of a junior high dance.

Harriet waited until she saw the Parisite approaching with her tea, which he carried much like one would carry the droppings of the neighbor's dog, and then got up to leave. As she walked toward the door she shook her head and thought, "I hope they know where their towels are."

-- Paul Alexis Goldschmidt
One of the professional dancing-partners in the lounge here -- you know the sort.

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