Collected Stories
Title: Collected Stories
Author: Olaf Stapledon
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Collected Stories
by
Olaf Stapledon
CONTENTS:
A MODERN MAGICIAN
EAST IS WEST
ARMS OUT OF HAND (1946)
A WORLD OF SOUND (1936)
THE SEED AND THE FLOWER (1916)
THE ROAD TO THE AIDE POST (1916)
THEY CONFRONTED EACH OTHER ACROSS A TEA TABLE in a cottage garden. Helen was leaning back coldly studying Jim's face. It was an oddly childish, almost foetal face, with its big brow, snub nose, and pouting lips. Childish, yes; but in the round dark eyes there was a gleam of madness. She had to admit that she was in a way drawn to this odd young man partly perhaps by his very childishness and his awkward innocent attempts at lovemaking; but partly by that sinister gleam.
Jim was leaning forward, talking hard. He had been talking for a long time, but she was no longer listening. She was deciding that though she was drawn to him she also disliked him. Why had she come out with him again? He was weedy and self-centered. Yet she had come.
Something he was saying recaptured her attention. He seemed to be annoyed that she had not been listening. He was all worked up about something. She heard him say, "I know you despise me, but you're making a big mistake. I tell you I have powers. I didn't intend to let you into my secret, yet; but, damn it, I will. I'm finding out a lot about the power of mind over matter. I can control matter at a distance, just by willing it. I'm going to be a sort of modern magician. I've even killed things by just willing it."
Helen, who was a medical student, prided herself on her shrewd materialism. She laughed contemptuously.
His face flushed with anger, and he said, "Oh very well! I'll have to show you."
On a bush a robin was singing. The young man's gaze left the girl's face and settled intently on the robin. "Watch that bird," he said. His voice was almost a whisper. Presently the bird stopped singing, and after looking miserable for a while, with its head hunched into its body, it dropped from the tree without opening its wings. It lay on the grass with its legs in the air, dead.
Jim let out a constricted squawk of triumph, staring at his victim. Then he turned his eyes on Helen. Mopping his pasty face with his handkerchief, he said, "That was a good turn. I've never tried it on a bird before, only on flies and beetles and a frog."
The girl stared at him silently, anxious not to seem startled.
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