Feb. 21st: Machines

The Handler by: Damon Knight

“The Big Man” walks into a bar or tavern receiving lots of congratulations from everyone that is their.  He is celebrating the production performed.  The Big Man starts thanking everyone who was a helping hand in making the play a success.  He then begins to say that all if this couldn’t have been possible without this one person, “The Handler”.  All of a sudden the room was quiet and the big man sat their motionless.  There was movement coming from the back of his dinner jacket.  The jacket split open and out climbed a little man.   He was dwarf size.  The place got really quiet and people starting leaving and not talking to him.  The only people left sitting and talking to him were the bald and the pop-eyed man, however they also thought it best if the little man climb back inside.  Disappointed he climbed back into the back of the big man.  The big man came to again and the party started once again. 

So what I took from this story was indifference and discrimination.  Even though the big man is a robot and controlled by the little man, Harry, people don’t respond to the little man.  The Big Man looks, seems and even acts like a normal human even though he is not.  And because Harry is not “big” people want nothing to do with him, even the bald and pop-eyed men who are different individuals themselves.     

Making it all the way into the Future on Gaxton Falls by: Barry N. Malzberg