Couldn’t keep away from the pile, and picked this book out from my latest library sale acquisitions as sort of a break from the norm.
I grew up on Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-1962) and Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone (1959-1964) and just reading the first couple stories brought twinges of recall–on the old black and white screen, as well as the many Hitchcock anthologies I’ve read years ago.
It’s A Good Life by Jerome Bixby immediately sounded familiar, but the writing is something I just now can appreciate beyond the story itself.
Anthony looked across the lawn at the grocery man–a bright, purple gaze. He didn’t say anything. Bill Soames tried to smile at him. After a second Anthony returned his attention to the rat. I had already devoured its tail, or at least chewed it of–for Anthony had made it bite faster than it could swallow, and little pin and red furry pieces lay around in on the green grass. Now the rat was having trouble reaching its hindquarters. (p. 14)
Pretty neat, huh? Anthony is a little boy who makes things happen by thinking them into being. He’s destroyed the town he lives in, the population down to forty-six mighty terrified residents, and these try as best they can to hide their thoughts from little Anthony so as not to upset him. They mumble to take their minds away from "bad" thoughts and danger, and cover with loudly proclaimed "That’s a good thing," in case they might slip within his earshot.
My only problem with the piece is that it overtells and drags a bit on the emphasis of what could happen–though Bixby is very good at subtle hints about what’s going on. The end, of course, is no big surprise. At a regular gathering, somebody pisses Anthony off and is poofed away and buried in nothingness. The nothingness that exists around the borders of what’s left of the town.
There may be deeper meanings here–this story has been established as a classic–and I can see mob mentality and man’s deeper dark nature (after all, the kid’s only three years old!) and society’s adaptation to a sense of what works.
But it’s still a great story.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology