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➡️ Whiskaboom by Alan Arkin - Short Story - Full Audiobook

Few people realize it today, but famed actor Alan Arkin wrote two science fiction short stories in the 1950s, beginning with "Whiskaboom" in 1955 and "People Soup" in 1958. Enjoy Whiskaboom by Alan Arkin

https://quizlit.org/whiskaboom-by-alan-arkin


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Narrated by Dale Grothmann, courtesy of Librivox

Category

😹
Fun
Transcript
00:00Jack's blunder was disastrous, but what he worried about was, would Einstein have approved?
00:15Dear Mr. Gretch,
00:17Mrs. Burroughs and I are sending your son Jack to you because we do not know what else
00:21to do with him.
00:23As you can see, we can't keep him with us in his present condition.
00:27Also, Jack owes us two weeks' rent, and since Mrs. Burroughs and I are retired, we would
00:33appreciate you sending the money.
00:35It has been a dry year and our garden has done poorly.
00:39The only reason we put up with your son in the first place was because we are so hard-pressed.
00:45He saw the sign on the porch, rang the bell, and paid Mrs. Burroughs a month's rent without
00:50even looking at the room.
00:52Then he ran out to his car and commenced pulling out suitcases and boxes and dragging them
00:56upstairs.
00:58After the third trip, Mrs. Burroughs saw he was having trouble with the stuff and he looked
01:02kind of worn out, so she offered to help.
01:06He gave her a hard look, as she described it to me when I got home.
01:10He said,
01:11I don't want anyone touching anything.
01:14Please don't interfere.
01:16I didn't mean to interfere, my wife told him.
01:19I only wanted to help.
01:21I don't want any help, he said quietly, but with a wild look in his eyes, and he staggered
01:26upstairs with the last of his baggage and locked the door.
01:30When I got home, Mrs. Burroughs told me she thought I ought to go have a look at the new
01:34border.
01:35I went up, thinking we'd have a little chat and straighten things out.
01:38I could hear him inside, hammering on something.
01:42He didn't hear my first knock or the second.
01:45I got sore and nearly banged the door down, at which time he decided to open up.
01:50I charged in ready to fight a bear, and there was this skinny, red-headed son of yours glaring
01:56at me.
01:57That's a lot of hammering you're doing, son, I said.
02:02That's the only way I can get these boxes open, and don't call me son.
02:07I don't like to disturb you, Mr. Gritch, but Mrs. Burroughs is a little upset over the
02:11way you acted today.
02:13I think you ought to come down for a cup of tea and get acquainted.
02:17I know I was rude, he said, looking a little ashamed, but I have waited for years for a
02:23chance to get to work on my own, with no interference.
02:27I'll come down tomorrow when I have got all my equipment set up, and apologize to Mrs.
02:31Burroughs then.
02:33I asked him what he was working on, but he said he would explain later.
02:37Before I got out the door he was hammering again.
02:40He worked till midnight.
02:43We saw Jack at mealtimes for the next few days, but he didn't talk much.
02:48We learned that he was twenty-six in spite of his looking like a boy in his teens, that
02:52he thought Professor Einstein was the greatest man ever, and that he disliked being called
02:58son.
02:59Of his experiment he didn't have much to say then.
03:03He saw Mrs. Burroughs was a little nervous about his experimenting in the guest room,
03:07and he assured her that it was not dangerous.
03:10Before the week was out we started hearing the noises.
03:13The first one was like a wire brush going around a barrel.
03:17It went whisk, whisk.
03:20Then he rigged up something that went skaboom every few seconds, like a loud heartbeat.
03:26Once in a while he got in a sound like a creaking well pump, but mostly it was skaboom and whisk,
03:32which eventually settled down to a steady, rhythmic whiskaboom, whiskaboom.
03:38It was kind of pleasant.
03:41Neither of us saw him for two days.
03:44The noises kept going.
03:46Mrs. Burroughs was alarmed because he was not answering her knock at mealtimes, and
03:50one morning she charged upstairs and hollered at him through the door.
03:53"'You stop your nonsense this minute and come down to breakfast.'
03:57"'I'm not hungry,' he called back.
04:00"'You open this door,' she ordered, and by George he did.
04:04"'Your whiskaboom or whatever it is will wait until after breakfast.'
04:09He sat at the table, but he was a tired boy.
04:12He had a cold.
04:13His eyelids kept battling, and I don't believe he could have lifted his coffee cup.
04:18He tried to look awake, and then over he went with his face in the oatmeal.
04:23Mrs. Burroughs ran for the ammonia, but he was out cold, so we wiped the oatmeal off
04:27his face and carried him upstairs.
04:30My wife rubbed Jack's wrist with garlic and put a wet towel on his face, and presently
04:35he came to.
04:37He looked wildly about the room at his machinery.
04:40It was all there, and strange-looking stuff, too.
04:43"'Please go away,' he begged.
04:45'I've got work to do.'
04:47Mrs. Burroughs helped him blow his nose.
04:49"'There'll be no more work for you, Sonny.
04:52Not till you're well.
04:54We'll take care of you.'
04:55He didn't seem to mind being called Sonny.
04:59He was sick for a week, and we tended him like one of our own.
05:03We got to know him pretty well.
05:05And we also got to know you.
05:07Now, Mr. Gritch, whatever you're doing in your laboratory is your business.
05:12You could be making atomic disintegrators, for all Jack told us.
05:16But he does not like it or approve of it, and he told us about your running battle with
05:19him to keep him working on your project instead of his own.
05:24Jack tried to explain his ideas of harnessing time and what he called the reintegration
05:28principle.
05:30It was all so much whisk-a-boom to us, so to speak, but he claimed it was for the good
05:35of mankind, which is fine with us.
05:38But he said you would not let him work it out, because there was less money in it than
05:41in your project, and this is why he had to get away and work and worry himself into a
05:47collapse.
05:49When he got well, Mrs. Burroughs told him, "'From now on, you're going to have three meals
05:53a day and eight hours' sleep, and in between you can play on your whisk-a-boom all you
05:58please."
06:00The whisk-a-booming became as familiar to us as our own voices.
06:05Last Sunday, Mrs. Burroughs and I came home from church about noon.
06:09She went inside through the front door to fix dinner.
06:12I walked around the house to look at the garden, and the moment I walked past the front of
06:17the house I got the shock of my life.
06:20The house disappeared.
06:22I was too surprised to stop walking, and a step later I was standing at the back of
06:26the house, and it was all there.
06:29I stepped back, and the whole house vanished again.
06:33One more step, and I was at the front.
06:37It looked like a real house in the front and in the back, but there wasn't any in between.
06:43It was like one of those false front saloons on the movie lots, but thinner.
06:48I thought of my wife, who had gone into the kitchen, and, for all I knew, was as thin
06:53as a house, and I went charging in the back door, yelling,
06:57"'Are you all right?'
06:59"'Of course I'm all right.
07:01What's the matter with you?'
07:03I grabbed her, and she was all there, thank heavens.
07:07She giggled and called me an old fool, but I dragged her outside and showed her what
07:11had happened to our house.
07:13She saw it, too, so I knew I didn't have sunstroke, but she couldn't understand it any better than
07:18I.
07:20Right about then I detected a prominent absence of whiskabooming.
07:23"'Jack!'
07:24I hollered, and we hurried back into the house and upstairs.
07:28Well, Mr. Gritch, it was so pitiful I can't describe it.
07:33He was there, but I never saw a more miserable human being.
07:36He was not only thin, but also flat, like a cartoon of a man who'd been steamrolled.
07:42He was lying on the bed, holding on to the covers, with no more substance to him than
07:46a thin piece of paper.
07:48Less.
07:49Mrs. Burroughs took one of his shoulders between her thumb and forefinger, and I took the other.
07:55We held him up.
07:57There was a breeze coming through the window, and Jack, well, he waved in the breeze.
08:03We closed the window and laid him down again, and he tried to explain what had happened.
08:08"'Professor Einstein wouldn't like this,' he moaned.
08:11Something went wrong.'
08:13He cried, shuddering.
08:16He went on, gasping and mumbling, and we gathered that he had hooked up a circuit the wrong
08:20way.
08:21"'I didn't harness the fourth.
08:23I chopped off the third dimension.
08:27Einstein would not have approved.'
08:29He was relieved to learn that the damage had been confined to himself and the house, so
08:33far as we knew.
08:35Like the house, Jack had insides, but we don't know where they are.
08:40We poured tea down him, and he could eat, after a fashion, but there is never a sign
08:44of a lump anywhere.
08:47At night we pinned him to the bed with clothespins, so he wouldn't blow off the bed.
08:52Next morning we rigged a line and pinned him to it so he could sit up.
08:56"'I know what to do,' he said, 'but I have to go back to the lab.
09:01Dad would have to let me have his staff and all sorts of equipment, and he won't do it.
09:06"'If he thinks more of his money than he does his own son,' Mrs. Burroughs said,
09:11"'then he's an unnatural father.'
09:15But Jack made us promise not to get in touch with you.
09:18Still, people are beginning to talk.
09:20The man from the electric company couldn't find the meter yesterday, because it's attached
09:25to the middle of the outside wall and has vanished.
09:29Mr. Greach, we are parents, and we feel that you will not hesitate a moment to do whatever
09:33is necessary to get Jack back into shape.
09:38So, despite our promise, we are sending Jack to you by registered parcel post, air mail.
09:44He doesn't mind the cardboard mailing tube he is rolled up in, as he has been sleeping
09:49in it, finding it more comfortable than being pinned to the sheets.
09:54Jack is a fine boy, sir, and we hope to hear soon that he is back to normal and doing the
09:58work he wants to do.
10:01Very truly yours, W. Burroughs.
10:04P.S. When Jack figures out the reintegration principle, we would appreciate his fixing
10:09our house.
10:11We get along as usual, but it makes us nervous to live in a house that, strictly speaking,
10:16has no insides.
10:18W.B.
10:19End of WHISKABOOM!
10:22By Alan Arkett