King of the Worlds Read Free Page B

so great? Do you have any advice for an up-and-coming actress? I hope you win an Oscar. You totally should. Also, can you send me an autographed glossy photo please?
    Sincerely,
    Theresa
    Not every letter was glowing. There’d been more than a few complaints from outraged mothers—as if it made any sense to grouse about the film’s content with the eighteen-year-old lead instead of, say, the writer or director. And anyway, the content wasn’t that bad. Yes, Elliott makes love to an alien, but there’s nothing full-frontal about the scene. Moreover, Korelu is clearly a female alien from a dimorphic species, and while she and Elliott can’t quite communicate yet, it’s clear from the soundtrack that they are madly in love. Some critics found it implausible and disgusting, worse than bestiality, while other, more forward-looking reviewers saw in it a bold bid for sexual equality. In any case, it stimulated discussion, which could only be a good thing considering that before long such questions would cease being theoretical.
    Young man,
    I hope you’re worried about the state of your soul. I saw the pitiful excuse for a film you were involved in, and I just want you to know that I found it disgusting and sad. When America goes down the tubes once and for all (it began in the sixties), we will have moral reprobates like you to thank. Don’t you know that you’re here in this world for just a brief time? Look to the state of your soul, young man, and consider yourself prayed for.
    â€“Gertrude Winifred Gans
    The irony of that penultimate line was thick. Sure enough, Dylan had remained on Earth for only a brief time after receiving that letter, though he was pretty sure Gertrude Winifred Gans was no prophet. Had she written “you’re here on this world for just a brief time,” it might have given him some real pause, but she’d written, “ in this world,” and eternity hinged on that single letter of difference. Still, some atavistic, God-fearing part of him was just beginning to look to the state of his soul when Erin, mercifully, called him in to dinner. Like Aeolus bottling the winds, he stuffed the letters back in the box, and closed the lid.
    As soon as he swiped away the door, the kids came and hugged his legs.
    â€œDaddy!”
    â€œDa—y!”
    Now he was ready. Now it was nice.
    â€¢ • •
    The next day at school, Dylan attempted, again, to stage act 3, scene 2 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with his freshman drama class.
    â€œOkay, so let’s review the situation here because it’s a little complicated. Who likes whom 5 at this point, do you recall? Let’s start with Hermia. Whom does she like? You know what, Connor, maybe you could draw it on the board for us?”
    5 _____________
    As a lover of language and a product of Catholic school, Dylan had grown up clearly distinguishing between “who” and “whom,” but over the course of his career he’d watched that rare inflection all but go extinct. He still used it, but his students by and large did not, and he was not so puritanical as to want to wage that losing war alone. Things change with time, whether we want them to or not, nothing lasts, and in the words of the immortal Lao Tzu (though they might as well have come from Darwin): “What is malleable is always superior to that which is immovable. This is the principle of controlling things by going along with them, of mastery through adaptation.”
    Connor nodded and slowly lifted himself up. Friends in baseball caps on either side patted him on the shoulders as if he’d just lost a contest or a loved one. When he got to the front of the room, Dylan handed him a green marker.
    â€œAll right, so Connor, please draw a girl on the board for us. You can keep it simple. A bathroom girl will do.”
    â€œA bathroom girl?”
    â€œYou know, the restroom girl? The intragalactic sign for