INTRODUCTION
Julio Aníbal Portas (8 Feb 1915 - 10 Dec 1984) was an Argentine fiction author, historian and bibliographer. For his science fiction output, he published four short stories that appeared in Más Allá ("Beyond"), an Argentinian science fiction magazine, three under the pseudonym Julián de Córdoba; the short stories "Raw Material" (#20, January 1955), "The Jump" (#22, March 1955) and the novella "Rino's Fantasies" (#46, April 1957), and one under the pseudonym Julio Almada, "Time Disintegrated" (#8, January 1954). "The Jump" was illustrated by Ornay.
For further information on this era of Argentine science fiction, see Rachel Haywood Ferreira's "Más Allá, El Eternauta, and the Dawn of the Golden Age of Latin American Science Fiction (1953-59)", "How Latin America Saved the World and Other Forgotten Futures" and Carlos Abraham's "Las revistas argentinas de ciencia ficción".
For complete scans of Más Allá, including the illustrations, see: https://ahira.com.ar/revistas/mas-alla-de-la-ciencia-y-de-la-fantasia/
THE JUMP
"The monster boarded the tram from the front platform and looked at the conductor. He stared through him to the back of his head with inhuman firmness. His brain waves, concentrated in a narrow, powerful beam, penetrated the man's cerebellum. The vehicle was about to come to a bend in the road. But it didn't follow the rail's curvature. Smoothly, without jolting, the tram, with the conductor, the guard and forty-eight seated passengers, continued its perfectly straight movement. Encountering a curvature in space, it didn't bend, and crossed the barrier that separated it from the other dimension..."
"The appearance of the monster..."
- "Wait a minute" - I said to myself - "I need to properly define its appearance, so that what happened to me that one time I was talking about bony legs doesn't happen to me again, when it turned out that two pages earlier I described the intergalactic visitor as a nebulous and incorporeal being... When one dedicates oneself to writing science fiction stories, one has to be careful of these details."
- "What should this monster be like?"... - I muttered. - How are we going to describe our dear little monster? Because I'm never insulting. When I'm aggressive, I distribute diminutives.
It's more delicate and effective. Anyone can try it on a large man, one who's very muscular and virile. Just say to him: "poor little guy!" to be convinced of the effectiveness of my system...
If only I had an electronic superbrain at my disposal, a robot interloper, or some such gadget, the sort I've invented by the dozens, and explained in great detail to my readers!
It had bulging eyes. One section of its very long legs was a perfect saw. The shell of its...
- "Magnificent," I said to myself. "Beautiful big locust, you've saved me. There's no monster more monstrous than a genuine locust, if I can describe it with my colorful imagination."
I relegated the hatred I felt for orthopterans from the attic of my subconscious. That very day, a swarm of locusts had taken my garden for a restaurant. They came by the thousands, ate my plants and my flowers, and then left without paying.
The locust hadn't moved. Its inscrutable eyes remained fixed on my manuscript. I don't like a common locust who's only just arrived to be criticizing my works. With my index finger and thumb, I took it by the legs and began to examine it in detail. There were several elements that could be useful in my description of the monster. The shape of the massive head, the iridescent colors, the ethereal weave of the wings...
The monster... I mean the locust, lay motionless beneath my fingers. If I had grasped only one of its legs, it would probably have struggled free, abandoning a limb as spoils of war. Joints are these creatures' weak area. And that's their strength.
It looked at me. I thought I saw a glint of malevolence in its little eyes, but it's possible it was just my imagination. Imagination is my strong area. That's my weakness.
Were there thoughts inside that armored skull? Or were they just photographic visions of green foliage and beautiful single locusts? For a moment, I thought my prisoner was of the female sex. When we see an animal other than a cow or a chicken, we tend to assume it's a male creature. It's silly, but it's so.
I wondered if my langosto would be capable of having any opinions, for example, about my person, or only violent but confusing emotions, like a taxi driver during rush hour.[Translator's note: The word for locust, "langosta" is female in gender, in this sentence, the male form 'langosto' is used. This gendering is also used near the end of the story.]
- "If I could just get inside that little head for a moment", I said, filled with insane curiosity...
...my knees ached. I felt dull stabbing pains in my abdomen where my legs were pressing against me. I tried to move them, but I couldn't. Then I made an effort to open my eyes. That wasn't possible either; they were open.
Before my blurry vision, a huge mass rose. It looked like a monument in a London square, on a winter's day. But it couldn't be London, because I'm not stupid; I knew very well that I was in Argentina, and in the summer. In any case, it was probably Pisa, not London, because the monument was leaning visibly to one side. But in central Italy, there's no fog, and furthermore, the leaning tower doesn't have an egg-shaped pedestal. Little by little I could focus better and the fog disappeared.
The monument was a bombilla, and the pedestal, naturally, was a mate gourd. My mate. The one my great-aunt Amparo gave me. She sent it to me from Spain for my birthday. With straw and everything. 14K gold mouthpiece. "Made in Barcelona."
The impact was terrible. If my mate was so big, I must've been very small. More or less like... a locust...
Terrified, I tried to escape from reality and let my thoughts wander and I had visions of immense trees with flowers that looked like dahlias. Vast meadows that looked like pumpkin leaves. I again felt the sensation of intense pleasure that I experienced when I was wandering through that Eden. And the fear. The horrible terror that a gigantic being inspired in me, that shook the trees as I might shake a blade of grass. It shook them with the movable appendages of its long legs, so that I couldn't enjoy its succulent leaves.
It must have been a nightmare, because I was never attracted to dahlia leaves, no matter how big they are. I confess that I like grilled kidneys, sirloin steak with champignon sauce, and many other things, but not dahlia leaves. I swear.
To escape from the nightmare, I fell into another one. There stood the giant, with his legs outstretched. Two of his movable appendages held my knees. My vision had cleared and without moving my eyes I could see perfectly behind me.
The giant was looking at me. I thought I saw in his huge eyes, a flash of malevolence...
I was beginning to understand. And a shiver would've ran through me if an insect's circulatory system allowed it to feel shivers. My self, my individual personality, was locked in the locust's skull. I wanted this exact thing!
The memories, the primal instincts, the reflexes, were those of the insect, but the self was mine. And then, in my body would the locust's self be found?
I didn't want to think about it. If the locust decided to squeeze my hand, I was done for. If my human reflexes ordered me to apply more pressure to both fingers, I was done for, too.
My self had my memory, as well as the memory of the insect. So there was some intangible contact between my self and my brain. It was likely that the self of the locust that reigned over my body was operating the same way.
My fear was that the bug would remember the giant who pursued it. In its hatred, it might crush the body that was now sheltering it. My self would die, certainly, and the locust's self would remain master of my body forever. I imagined what would happen. They would lock me up, that is, they would lock it up in a mental asylum...
Suddenly I felt it, like a blow from a hammer. It wasn't hate. It was love. A love so primitive, so overwhelmingly grand, that it was almost cruel. I wish a woman would love me like that someday, with that intensity.
My small, cold body was filled with this love that tried to envelop me like an octopus envelops its prey. My conscience tried to escape the embrace and couldn't. I was cornered in that narrow brain.
That very acute feeling, who was it for?
It couldn't be anything else. It was for me!
The langosta was not a langosto. It was a señorita langosta. He who has never been loved by a locust cannot imagine how terrible it is.
Crazed with horror, I suddenly vaulted and was freed from my fingers. I felt the giant rise, probably to chase me.
With two well-aimed jumps, I got out through the half-open door and hid behind some leaves. It was a tomato plant. I recognized it and had an idea.
The giant, with his clumsy human senses, was still searching around the room for me.
My strong jaws began to gnaw at a stem, and, resisting the urge to devour the juicy pulp, I had soon snapped off a twig. It was enormous to me, but with superhuman strength (that of a locust) I dragged it inside. I dropped the vine on the ground and jumped back into the darkness of the garden. There I stayed, watching.
The giant, attracted by the movement, looked down and saw the tomato vine. Bending down, he quickly grabbed it and brought it to his mouth.
His locust conscience longed for the tasty delicacy, but his human palate rejected it in disgust.
Exactly as I planned it! The locust, for a moment, wished he were a locust to savor that morsel, and I took advantage of this brief instant.
The feeling of relief upon returning to my body was like breathing again after being underwater for three minutes.
I slammed the door shut and the locust was left outside in the darkness. Let it eat my garden. It would be welcome if it did!
Sometimes I think it was nothing more than a nightmare. I try to convince myself that it was nothing more, anyway. And I continue writing stories, because that's my profession and I have to live... But I assure you sometimes I get scared...
No comments:
Post a Comment