Hornets and Others

shoulder, and heard him curse and saw him go down to one knee.

They fired more shots at me then, and I ducked back down and swallowed the rest of the jar, and waited until the commotion calmed down.

'You listen to me, Jimmy,' Mapes said, a little of the bellow out of his voice, 'cause he was breathing hard. I heard him tell someone, 'Leave me alone!' before he talked to me again. 'Jimmy, you listen to me. You know what we're going to have to do.'

I was still crying a little bit, but I made myself stop and yelled good and loud. 'That's all right, Sheriff! I'm just going to sit here and drink the rest of this white lightning!' I took the empty jar in my hand and tossed it out of the hole as far as I could in the sheriff's direction, then opened another jar.

No one said anything, and then Mapes said, 'Now, Jimmy, you got to realize that Pisser Johnson never did anything with those jars. We checked them with the fed man last week. There's nothing in 'em but good, clean Housack river water.'

But I guess I already knew that, so I put the barrel of the gun in my mouth as far up as it would go and pulled off the last shot.

The Glass Man

Johann Pinzer peered into his shaving mirror one morning and discovered that he was now made entirely of glass. A clear crystal visage, perfectly filling the contours of his old face, stared back at him where once a fleshy one had. He could see straight through the back of his head to the wall behind; there were no organs, skull or brain to block his vision.

He gave a little gasp of 'Oh!' and turned his head away from the mirror, noticing that the hand he had brought up to his mouth was also made of glass, of a perfectly pliable sort. He could move his fingers quite easily, as easily as always, and yet when he tapped against the porcelain sink with one it gave off the unmistakable ping of crystal.

At least I'm made of fine glass, he thought fleetingly, and then the full horror of his position struck him and he began to tremble. He opened his robe, shaking, and discovered that, yes, his entire body was composed of perfectly clear glass.

The possibility that he was dreaming, must be dreaming, suddenly passed through his mind, but he quickly dismissed it. He knew he would never dream of such a thing, and his dreams were never so vivid.

His predicament was too real. His next thought was that perhaps the whole of humanity had turned to glass, and a perverse thrill ran through him. 'Perhaps I am not alone,' a part of his mind said. He ran to the bedroom to observe his wife.

She was sleeping on her side, away from him, and he had to turn her over to discover that she was still corporeally formed of flesh and blood. His heart sank. The act of moving his wife awoke her, and she opened her eyes on his new face. 'Oh!' she cried, sitting straight up in bed and pushing herself back against the headboard with her legs. 'Johann—oh!'

He sought to reassure her that what she was seeing was really him, but it took some moments to calm her. She did not, however, become hysterical, and it was not long before she was peering at him with a new interest and a fascinated curiosity. 'Is it you, Johann? Is it really you in—there?' Her eyes, which he had always thought of as doe-like, were even wider than normal; he thought tenderly of their marriage and how that look of innocence always brightened her face.

'It is I, Ilse. What am I to do?'

His wife shook her head. 'I don't know, we must think.' She slipped out of bed and into her robe. 'Come.'

She made a small breakfast for them—Johann was amazed to find that his appetite was as full-bodied as ever and that food was easily ingested and was not visible through him after he placed it in his mouth ('I imagine the glass somehow absorbs it,' he thought)—and they discussed his plight.

'I suppose,' his wife said, 'that you must try to continue life as normally as possible. People no doubt will make remarks, but you must try to bear up under your changed condition and go on as if nothing were different. That would seem best.'

Johann sat chewing his toast thoughtfully; he was content to listen to Ilse since she had always been the more practical of the two of them and he knew her reasoning was sound. A sudden thought, though, a possible way to avoid the problem, occurred to him.

'What of disguise?' he said.

Ilse shook her head immediately. 'Impractical,' she said. 'Paint would peel or chip, and a mask would turn you into a cartoon figure. I'm afraid you must bear your cross. I will be with you,' and she took his hand though she wanted to pull away from its hard, crystalline touch, 'and I'm sure there is a reason for this transformation. God has his ways.'

Johann took his hand away; for a moment his glass visage turned, looking into a vague distance, then suddenly it revolved back on his spouse. 'I wonder if I will be left alone,' he said suddenly, a hard brittle edge coming into his voice; he nearly hit the flat of his left hand with his right fist but thought better of it at the last moment, fearing to damage himself. 'I somehow suspect not.' He looked to his wife. 'I will go to work.' He stood up, and his wife stood up with him.

He dressed quickly, covering as much of his body as possible, and his wife helped him with his coat and muffler at the door to their apartment. 'Good-bye,' he said stiffly, turning to leave, but she pulled his face down to hers and kissed his cold, clear mouth. 'Remember, I am with you,' she whispered, and then she turned away, a tear in her eye. 'I will see you tonight.'

He arrived at work late, deciding to take an out of the way route which would not expose him to as much scrutiny as his normal, busy path. Even so, a few passersby noticed his downturned, translucent face, and one woman, who he bumped into by mistake, gave a short cry before turning and scurrying away. She gave a glance back at him when she was some distance away, and Johann saw on her face a look, not so much of fear, but of something else: a growing envy, almost. Johann got quickly away from her, and he climbed the back stairs to his office and was able to make it to his desk before anyone noticed him. He feared his anonymity would not last long, however.

He was in the midst of a small stack of papers when his coffee companion, Biber, pushed open the door to his cubicle with a greeting. He drew up short, though, on seeing the glass man before him.

Biber flushed, turning abruptly to leave with a muttered apology for barging into the wrong compartment, wanting only to get away from this transparent thing in clothes, but a movement of the glass man's head, a personal attribute of Johann's that Biber knew well, made him stop. 'Johann—?' he said tentatively, bending down to peer into his friend's transmogrified face. 'It's you?'

'Yes, it's me,' said Pinzer, leaning back with his hands behind his head, fighting desperately to appear normal when he only wanted to bolt and hide in a closet, under a desk, anywhere.

Biber's look of mystification turned to one of astonishment. 'What's happened to you! How can you be this way?'

'I don't know,' said Johann, and he then went on to explain his discovery on waking that morning. He was glad that Biber had been the first at the office to see him this way; he was a good working companion and would help to smooth the way for him.

'What can you do about it?' Biber asked, and when Johann replied that he did not know, Biber begged him to stay where he was and that he would return in a few minutes with coffee for the two of them. 'It might not be good for you to go to the coffee room as you are, yet; let's talk about this.'

Biber returned a few moments later, with a stealthy motion, peering behind him and carefully closing the door behind him, and sat down before Johann. 'No one else knows,' he said. 'I have a plan. I've notified two acquaintances of mine, and we should have you set up grandly in no time at all.'

Johann sat up in alarm. 'What do you mean!'

'Why, we're going to make you famous, of course.' Biber was smiling, with an open, convinced look on his face.